


A Myth of Devotion

by celestial_txt



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bottom Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Liberal bending of astrologian lore, Liberal use of tarot, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Oral Sex, Past Lives, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Power Play, Relatively Canon Compliant, Romance, Rough Sex, Teasing, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Viera Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24796888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_txt/pseuds/celestial_txt
Summary: “How about an exchange. For each card you draw, I get to ask you one question. You get to show me how this…” Emet-Selch picks up a card between two fingers, amused. “Rudimentary creation can reveal the truth about me. And you give me a little. I came here for cooperation, after all. You learn about me, I learn about you.”When the Warrior of Light performs a tarot reading for Emet-Selch, it reveals many truths about who they are to each other and sets them down a path that leads to resurfaced memories, sharp blades in the night, and a romance that risks dooming them... Or freeing them both of their burdensome destinies.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 52
Kudos: 161





	1. Ace of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > He takes her in his arms.  
> He wants to say _I love you, nothing can hurt you_
>> 
>> but he thinks  
> this is a lie, so he says in the end  
>  _you're dead, nothing can hurt you_  
>  which seems to him  
> a more promising beginning, more true.
> 
> — extract from _A Myth of Devotion_ , by Louise Glück
> 
> Chapter 1: Ace of Swords. _The Ace of Swords notes the beginning of a conquest. Be cautioned to exercise wisdom when wielding your power, or else victory will be short-lived and destructive._

  
There once was a place of shadows, a place beyond the living. A place where the dead were meant to be, but with the crumbling of the fabric of reality, they too had vanished, torn from their rightful home. Not even in death could they stop the oncoming destruction. A city of shadows beneath a sunless sea. 

There once were a pair of hands there, drawing life into the realm, someone not meant to be there. He had committed a great crime bringing her there, not just against the laws of life and death — but against her too. For a while, she had lived in ignorance, unaware. Or at least she had pretended as much. She had woven her creations, infusing his realm of the dead with her touch. It had been a different place with her there. A place he yearned to return to, always. 

There once was love in the place of shadows. Until it, too, was undone by his hands. It was his burden to bear: the be the one to destroy, to undo. 

And then, there had been nothing. Just darkness, fragments and eons of memories of what had been. 

* * *

This is what Elidibus awakened him for? The task hardly seems worth the headache.

He sends his illusionary image out, willing it to speak. Adding a dramatic flair is never necessary, of course, but it is fun. And he is aching for something more entertaining than having to deal with his grandsire Varis in Garlemald. 

From his place in the shadows, he can observe them. Their reactions vary — the tall elezen is skeptical but he can tell that the words are taking root. Elidibus did say that one was amenable to suggestion, though untrustworthy. And he sure likes to talk history, recognising the body for the Garlean Emperor it used to be. The smaller ones are less keen to listen, the one dressed in red twitching at the fingertips, looking like she wants to ram him through with her rapier.

Lahabrea’s former vessel, of course, will prove troublesome. Emet-Selch finds himself wishing that Lahabrea would have stuck to one body, it would make his own task here less onerous. No matter. They are ultimately of little interest, compared to the one at the center.

She fascinates him. He recognises the face from somewhere, but faces, given a long enough timeline, end up repeating. Is it an enemy he cut down in battle? There is a nagging sensation at the back of his mind, scratching at his consciousness.

No. _No_. He sees now.

The light of Hydaelyn almost manages to obscure her, emanating from her in waves. How restricting it must be, Emet-Selch thinks, but he knows the feeling of it all too well. No matter. Hydaelyn has little sway over this shard, even if her bright light would try to blot out the one it envelops. Ironic that Hydaelyn should make this choice.

The fear that ripples through the Scions amuses him, but the vaunted hero does not flinch at all. She locks eyes with his illusion, arms crossed, but she says nothing. Her companions, of course, alter between questions and accusations, their agitation growing. 

It gives him time to watch her. She is tall, just as tall as him, even without the slanted viera ears. Her white hair is gathered up at the nape of her neck, though one strand has broken free and hangs at the side of her face. Just looking at it tempts him to tuck it back into place, the only messy part of her: her coat and bottoms have a styling of late Allagan empire to the cut, practical and with nowhere near the flair he tried so hard to instill once upon a time. Truly, a disappointing era.

What name did Elidibus say she went by? Q something. Ah. He remembers now. Qestra. A quaint name, though not wholly hideous.

Her ears twitch and she turns her eyes toward him in the shadows. A movement so imperceptible that her friends do not notice, but she pins him with her gaze. Without dropping eye contact she throws a dagger through the illusion, hitting straight through its heart. Precise aim. He will have to be mindful of that. 

“If you wish to speak with me,” Qestra says, voice dripping with ice, “come and face me. I will not deal with your projection.”

“Sharp eyes,” Emet-Selch says, smiling. His offered compliment does little to alter her serious expression. “I should have expected nothing less of the famed Warrior of Light. Perhaps you will understand my hesitation to appear before you.”

“Perhaps.” She narrows her eyes. “So. What would you say to me?”

“I think it is about time we try a different approach to each other, even if my cohort might disagree. Nonetheless, I offer this to you: cooperation. I will not raise a hand to hinder your hunt for the Lightwardens. If you desire it, I will even lend you my knowledge and strength.” 

Her companions, of course, do not take it well.

“You think us foolish enough to trust an Ascian?”

“You must be-”

“We would rather drown than accept your aid!”

He rolls his eyes, rubbing at his temples as he addresses her alone. ”They do go on, don’t they? Strong opinions. But yours is the one that truly matters.” He extends his hand, offering a handshake to seal the deal. ”Hmm? Don’t you wish to know at least a bit more about your so-called enemy? Don’t you wish to stop fledgling around in the dark?”

A hush falls over the square as she regards him, expression stone.

Emet-Selch realises she wants something more. ”Rest assured, I will not act against you. I keep my word, as long as you keep yours.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And what words would you have from me?”

“Trust me. As much as you are able. I can show you the truth of things you have only grasped at in long-forgotten dreams. That is all I ask.”

“Trust does not come just because you ask.”

“Trust that I will prove myself worthy of it, just as I will trust you to prove the same to me.”

“Oh, how little you ask.” Though her expression remains serious, there is a teasing lilt to her voice. He is not the only one to pick up on this.

“You cannot be seriously considering this,” Lahabrea’s former vessel exclaims.

She turns her head and though Emet-Selch cannot see her face, he can see the Hyur’s. Oh, how he silences quickly, but the sullen annoyance will not rest easy for a long while. Already his presence is sowing discord among them. It takes so little to fracture them, to split them apart. 

“I accept,” Qestra says, returning her attention to Emet-Selch and taking his hand to shake. He can feel the light that suffuses her recoiling from him, though she herself hardly seems to notice, drowning as she is in the primordial light of another Star’s. Oh Hydaelyn. Truly, your champion is about to burn you out of her entirely at the rate she is going.

Manipulating the aether he draws the dagger into his hand and spins it around, offering the hilt to her. “You can keep this sheathed while with me. There are better targets for you to focus your ire on.” 

“For now,” she relents, but he sees the small twitch at the corner of her mouth. Is that almost a smile? 

She fascinates him because she holds her silence well. Because her eyes keep scanning him, taking him in. There is something familiar in how she watches him. 

Perhaps she will be worth his time. 

* * *

It is not until late in the evening that Qestra finally finds the time, between trying to appease Thancred and reassuring Alisaie that no, she has not lost it, to be alone. The Crystal Exarch gave her access to his private garden when she arrived, mysteriously already keyed into knowing about how much she likes them. Though it was in a rather sorry state when she arrived, she has tended to it enough to make it grow and prosper. With a few additions of magicked soil and water to speed up the process. 

Kicking off her shoes, she sinks her toes into the soft grass, stretching her sore calf muscles. She has yearned for a few days in the Crystarium as they recover and rest. And here, in the garden, none of the others will find and interrupt her.

In the middle of the garden, surrounded by lush green plants with massive leaves, is a table for two. She uses the second seat to kick up her feet and fishes the deck of divination cards from the pocket at her side.

She shuffles and cut the deck, following the instructions from the thick tome Urianger lent to her. Since arriving on the First, she has struggled with the sensation of fate, of destiny: the sky is too different. No stars to guide her path. No charts that make sense. The sky of everlasting light blotting out the constellations, and even then when the night returns, they are not the same. Where her eyes yearns to see the Bole, she now sees The Chariot. 

It would be easier to just not. To forget about it, to store it away for another time and pick up the bow again, or polish off a sword and shield. Of course, the path of least resistance seldom appeals to her. 

Urianger has, in his time on the First, amassed a gigantic collection of books regarding the study of divination cards. Having lost the ability to chart the night sky for so long, the astrologians of the First instead turned to expanding the card system, encompassing seventy-two in total in the aether-infused deck Urianger gifted her. 

_“There are more decks, should thou find this one insufficient.”_

_“How many are there?”_

_“I regret to say, I have only mastered five thus far.”_

_“Nothing is ever simple, is it.”_

_“There is never one single truth, but rather many, shifting between the viewpoints.” Urianger flips open the introduction. “The First possesses a different way of looking at things than the Source, and I am certain thou will find the enlightenment within that.”_

So she has studied, memorised, learnt. At first it felt like burning a new alphabet into her head, unlocking a new system of meaning that piece by piece broke open her perception. Now, it comes to her like second nature. The astrologians of the First pluck at the great weave threading destinies together, same as the Source: they simply look at it differently. She almost likes the system more than the Sharlayan one, how it was about revealing aspects and facets one at a time, wherein even the placement of the cards mattered and laid bare the unconscious threads shimmering at the edge of your perception. It was not predicting the future, not really, but rather a tool to analyse a complex tapestry of multiple interwoven threads. The things that were there, partially unknown and concealed, pushed away and denied.

Laying the stack of cards down on the table, she runs her finger along the side of it, letting it connect with her aether. Then she fans them out, facedown, and focuses on a single, simple question: what is coming? 

One card calls out to her and with a flick of her fingers it flips over, revealing itself. Nine of Wands. _After many great battles and perceived wins, the burden of the path makes itself known and tests your worth. A portent of unexpected burdens._ It does not surprise her — she has felt the exhaustion haunting at the fringes of her consciousness. 

She feels a pair of eyes on her again. She has her suspicions who it is, and briefly debates just ignoring him. He deserves as much. But another part of her… Is a fool.

“Skulking about the shadows is dangerous,” she says out loud, and his laugh rings over the garden. 

“Ever a vigilant hunter.” Emet-Selch seems to take form out of the shadows themselves, pulling them into the shape of a man. He flicks a finger against the high tip of her ear and she bares her teeth. “Nothing can get past these, can they?”

“It is how my kin have stayed out of Garlemald’s reach.”

“But not you. You left the forest. And if I am not mistaken, once you leave, you can never go back. Was it worth it? To go out alone and never be allowed the return?” His voice is soft, almost tender, but it does not endear him to her. “But enough about such heartbreaking topics. What does the future hold, according to these playcards, hmm?” Emet-Selch leans over her shoulder. “Certain doom? Eternal darkness?”

“It would seem they foretell of an annoyance disturbing my work,” she says between gritted teeth. 

“Testy tonight? I guess dealing with a former host of Lahabrea’s can be exhausting. He knows how to pick them.”

“Was there something you wanted?”

“Can a man not seek out his enemy for a moment of convivial talk?” He pulls out the chair at the other side of the table, yanking away her comfortable footrest, and sits himself down. 

“If you do not come for an actual reason—“

“Then read me.” When she does not react, he sighs. “Entertain me, if you will. Let me give our moment here purpose.”

“Am I not entertaining enough to just watch in silence, from the shadows?”

“You have your moments. This, however, is not one of them.” When she does not relent, he changes tactic. “Ah. How about an exchange. For each card you draw, I get to ask you one question. You get to show me how this…” He picks up a card between two fingers, amused. “Rudimentary creation can reveal the truth about me. And you give me a little. I came here for cooperation, after all. You learn about me, I learn about you.”

She cannot deny that it is tempting. It is just that his smug face, the way he looks at her like he already knows he will win, that makes a frisson of almost feral rage rise up in her. Oh, how she wants to shove his face in the dirt and grind it down. 

Unfortunately, she wants to know more than she wants to be cruel. For now. 

“Fine,” she says, sweeping the cards into her left hand and shuffling them while glaring at Emet-Selch. 

“Excellent. I knew you’d be the reasonable one of your little troupe.” 

“For now,” Qestra mutters, focusing on cleansing the cards of her aether and attuning them to his. It is a subtle sleight of hand, to draw in another’s aether before reading them, but there is something different about his. Ancient, and dark. She stops shuffling and clenches her fingers. 

He stretches out in the chair, rolling his head from side to side before folding his hands under his chin and watching her. “Well?”

Putting down the deck she focuses on him, maintaining eye contact. He does not flinch. His amber eyes meet hers without hesitation, and she senses that he is searching her as much as she is him. 

She can feel it, like a shiver right under her fingertips, as she focuses her question onto the man who sits in front of her. Maintaining focus is paramount, and she holds up her finger when he opens his mouth.

“Quiet,” she whispers. “I need to concentrate.”

Reading the cards is like peeling away layer after layer until she finds the truth in each of them, sinking into a place of knowledge beyond what she can explain, into the very primordial core of aether. It was like that in her youth too, carving runes into the bones of hunted animals and riverstones as was customary in her village — she would chart out other’s troubles, sinking into a peculiar reverie as she interpreted the bone runes. In the Sharlayan Academy, they had called it touching the great aetherweave. In her youth, it had just been a talent among other talents.

Holding the intent in her mind — of finding an answer to _who is Emet-Selch_ — she taps her finger on the topmost card of the deck and a single card slides out, landing between them. Five of Cups: a lone person clad in a dark robe, staring out at sea on a desolate shore as the cups lay knocked over at their feet. 

“Do tell,” he drawls.

“You are mourning. What you thought would be your life, your future, was ripped away from you, and you have never been able to move past it. It’s not just grief, it defines you. It drives you.” What she doesn’t say is that the card reveals him mourning a love, and it has left him filled with regrets. He does not need to know that she can read that, and she rather likes playing that information close to her chest. It could be useful later.

He puts a hand over his chest, but his voice is still light and teasing. “Cutting words, my dear. My turn: why did you leave the forest?”

“No wine and dine before asking such a personal question? For shame.”

“Is that the way to get you talking? You should have told me earlier. But I do believe the exchange was mutually agreed upon. There will be other nights, now that you have so blissfully restored darkness.”

“I left because it was my time to do so. I didn’t commit a crime, I didn’t fall in love. I spent a long time there, and then one day, I just knew it was time.” 

“Do you not miss it, the great boughs and the moss, the silence and the dappled sunlight?”

She wags her finger. “One card, one question. Wait your turn.”

 _What troubles him_ , she asks silently, and pulls the next card: Two of Swords. A lone figure blindfolded, holding up two great swords. 

“You have arrived at a stalemate. You have made great progress, sure, but you cannot move further without losing too much now. It ties your hands: both options available to you cut too deep in one way or the other.” But cut he must, and whichever way the swords fall, troubles await. If only she can figure out what it is that holds him back, perhaps… The thought is tempting. A small hook, however tiny, can be turned to an advantage. 

Perhaps spending time with him will not be a complete headache, after all. 

“Why are you Hydaelyn’s champion?”

Or maybe it will be.

“Others call me Her champion.” 

“You were chosen by Her, were you not?”

She nods. “And I did not make the same choice back.”

“Gods rarely extend that courtesy.” He says gods with such disdain in his voice that she wonders what he means, exactly, though she is not the one asking. And besides, gods hardly matter in this place, at this time. He sighs. “Do you even understand the blessing granted to you? What it does? What it means?” Before she can rebuff him he holds up his hands. “They were not questions you could answer anyway, so they do not matter. Forget I even uttered them.”

She draws again. _What does he want from me_. Six of Cups. An empty house, with a person hunched over a cane looking at a patch of flowers. 

“You are nostalgic for a golden time in your past, a place long gone and irrevocably changed. Yet you cannot stop yourself hoping. You find yourself there again, and the past is almost within reach — just not in the form you expected.” She opted not to mention how much soft sentimentality the card held, nor how someone from his past was destined to cross paths with him again soon. 

Emet-Selch taps a finger against his temple as he studies her, weighing the options. She finds herself worrying about what he wants to know — she can withhold a lot, of course. Obfuscate the truth, just as she is doing now. She is a terrible liar, however. Concealing things is different than outright coming up with a fake story on the spot. 

“Where do I know you from?”

The question is so ridiculous it makes her laugh. ”I’m sure your cohort have told you enough about me.”

“No. Before this. I know that face from somewhere.”

She leans back, now the smug one. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said.”

“I have lived a long, long time. I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. Indulge me.”

“Your wife had me invited to your court once upon a time. And then, well. I’m sure even you remember.”

A spark flashes in his eyes, smile faltering. “You… Are older than you look. Damned Viera and their lifespan.” 

“I thought you would have recognized me by now, to be honest. But what can one expect from an old, broken man. It’s been some time, hasn’t it?”

“It has.” His eyebrows knit together. “How did you even escape?”

She smiles softly, chin in hand as she leans over the table. “I’ll allow you that second question. Just this once. Determination, a bit of luck, fast legs.” She reaches a hand across the table, nudging his chin. Hubris must have seized her. ”Chin up. I won’t try it again, knowing what you are now.”

Moving fast as lightning, he catches her hand by the wrist, and she tampers down on the urge to flinch and yank herself free. Her heart races for a moment, and she thinks she sees a flicker of the man whose throat she leapt at decades ago — the terrifying Garlean Emperor — but then he is gone as Emet-Selch smells her wrist, drawing in deep of her scent.

“Ah. Yes. I remember this perfume. For a decade I tried to track you down on the scent alone.” He inhales again, the tip of his nose pressing against the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. “A strange thing, to have an assassin wear such a distinctive scent on their attempt at my life.” 

Her blood feels unbearably hot in her veins, and when she pulls her hand away he lets go easily. Suddenly she is unsure of him. If he ever actually forgot her, or was just toying with her.

Returning to the cards, she struggles to piece together her focus, the question muddled in her mind between _what haunts him_ and _what have I done to him to deserve that_ , and out comes Three of Swords. Three blades crossing underneath heavy clouds, a darkness oozing and dripping from the sharpened tips as they are impaled through a heart.

“There was a disagreement, a…” She squints at the card, feeling like the aether is parting and pulling her deeper into his truths, drawing her too close too fast. “A betrayal.” And he was both the betrayer and the betrayed. “But you loved them, and their departure from your life haunts you immensely, because you could have prevented it. Because you were the catalyst.” 

Nothing in his face tells whether her reading is accurate or not, but she has done this for decades. She knows when she is right. Emet-Selch can keep his mask as rigid as he wants, one way or another she will find the heart of the truth with him. 

“Why did you actually leave the forest?”

Her nostrils flare. “I told you. You would forfeit your question on that matter?”

“I am not forfeiting at all. I am asking again. This time, I hope your answer proves more truthful.”

Weighing the truth in her mind, she hesitates. It is not one she has told even the Scions, and none of them have been insistent enough to pry. Not that it is a subject of shame, not really, just one she never touches upon. Some dark holes in the past are better to just skirt around rather than fall into. 

It is just that she remembers the forest, to this day, even though she has not set foot in there for over a century. She accepted the price of leaving then. Some mornings when she wakes up and looks out her window at the aberrant purple foliage of Lakeland, she thinks: maybe I should never have left at all. A thought that plants itself deep in her mind and echoes throughout the day. Those days… She never knows what to do with herself then. Those days make her feel like a pair of hands with no purpose, a body with no home but the endless burden of destiny rotting throughout her. 

To tell such a story is never easy. That she even considers it for a brief moment is humiliating. 

“I left because I thought things would be better for me.” It is a small surrender.

“And were they?”

“There is no single answer to that question,” she says wryly, unwilling to yield more than that.

Emet-Selch taps his fingers against the table, clearly working something through in his mind as he takes in what she is and is not saying. He is Ascian. She is the celebrated Warrior of Darkness. They are both exchanging small bits and pieces at this table, but never showing their full hand. Perhaps her reluctance to give over that part of her story, as small and as insignificant in the greater whole that it is, disappoints him. 

“Very well.” He shrugs, the serious expression breaking apart as he slides back into the glibness of before. “If that is all you will say. Draw your card then.”

The question rises fast to her mind, but fractures, too frantic to remain as precise as it should be. _Why is he here / with me / why is he here with me now_. She draws two cards, to her surprise, but it is not unheard of to happen when a question has a complex answer. The Chained One, and the Temptation. Chewing on her lower lip, she considers. This is a revealing hand, while yet… It manages to draw even more obscured matters to the surface.

At least she finds some enjoyment from the combination, not bothering to hide her slight triumph as she reads him. “Sacrifice has become a core part of you, and while others were the ones to elevate you to this glorified martyrdom, you are now the one who keeps up the cycle. Is it that you like it there, suffering and self-flagellating, instead of breaking the chains? I wonder. Perhaps it is as simple as that you cannot see the path of freedom for all the sweat and blood in your eyes.” She chews on her bottom lip, smiling enough to bare her fangs. A calculated move to remind him: she is playing along here too. Stay alert. “You are tempted, though. Very tempted. Something that calls to you, and that you have resisted for so long. But have you not earned a bit of indulgence? Are your shoulders not tired from the constant burden?”

Her words have an effect on him. He leans forward in the chair, closer to her without touching. Her breathing grows more shallow, the old hunter training still deeply ingrained in how she approaches potential prey: light breath, slow movements.

“And what would a vaunted champion of Hydaelyn offer, hmm?” Emet-Selch’s voice is low and silken, but she can sense the darkness underneath. Something about her reading hit a nerve. She files it away for later, an edge to push at another time.

For now, she simply leans back and crosses her arms. “I still remember how to craft the auracite we used to end your kin.”

A shadow flits across his face, even as he speaks in a light-hearted tone. “You are cruel at heart. I wonder what those who celebrate your name would think if they knew that about you.”

She laughs. “I am sure they have better things to do than fret over what I say here, right now.”

“You would be surprised.” He eyes the cards, then her. “Does this mean two questions?”

She nods.

“Excellent. Have you had any strange dreams lately?”

“Odd question.”

“We live in strange times.”

She considers it. After all, it is not like it is a dream that actually matters: it reveals precious little about her. She will grant him this. “I dream about walking around in a walled-in garden, a dark sky with no stars above me. In my hands I hold a pair of scissors and I take each plant in turn, touching their soft petals, and snip them off. One by one, until all that remains are withering stems turning to dust in my wake.”

“And what do you feel in this dream?”

“Relief.” 

The actions she commit in the dream are not something she would ever replicate in the waking world. She cares for the flowers and plants she has gathered into her suite in the Pendants, tending to them as she can. She has even started taking cuttings and giving away to others, and begun planting more resilient flowers in the Exarch’s own garden. It is just… The sheer magnitude of the relief she feels in the dream, how it embraces her when she is there and lingers on when she wakes, it’s soothes her more than anything. 

“You are an interesting one. Go on. Draw your card then. Tell me something about us.”

The last word he utters echoes in her head, influencing the question: _what is it about us, what does he mean to us, us two?_ A lone card emerges from the deck: The Lovers. 

Taken aback, she raises an eyebrow at him. “Is this one of your funny tricks?”

He holds his hands up, shrugging. “I am not the one reading the divination cards. I am merely the observer.”

She holds the card up between two fingers, glaring. “This isn’t funny.”

“My my, you are rattled.” He smirks, ever infuriating. “So the thought of us disturbs you that much. Not even a little tempted?” Mimicking the way she teased him a mere few minutes ago, just to rub salt in the wound. 

“In your dreams,” she snarls. 

“For shame.” Pushing back the chair, he gets up. “Well, this has been most insightful. It was almost entertaining at times.”

“What about your question?”

“I will save it for another time. You seem to have your hands full with that.” He inclines his head toward the card in her hand. “And I am overdue for some rest.” Turning, he takes two steps before vanishing in a dark cloud, the aether rippling in the garden before stilling. 

Qestra keeps looking at the card, wondering what the aether is trying to tell her. 

The Lovers. 

To the casual onlooker, of course it is about love, about good omens for a relationship. But as Urianger instructed her, one needs only scratch at the surface with the lightest touch — by the Twelve, she hates how even his explanations worm their way into her head. No, at its heart, the card is about making a moral choice. To _not_ make the choice that looms ahead is to invite chaos and discord, and to walk into your own doom because all you desire has been granted you and blinded you. It is a warning.

No matter how many times she turns the card over, it does not ease her mind, puzzling over what it means. 

* * *

Alone again, far removed from the Crystarium garden where the shattered hero Qestra tried to divine his secrets, Emet-Selch pours himself a glass of wine, shedding his heavy coat and reclining on the chaise-lounge. 

He came awfully close — he could have reached out and touched her. But he does not want to be that disappointed. Not again. At least he left a parting gift, influencing her perception ever so slightly as to rattle her. The suggestion of the card will haunt her, no doubt. Good. It’s the least Persephone deserves, after the eons she has haunted him. 

The cruel thing about the shards was how he would find slivers of ones he had known, these fragmented pieces of people he had once walked the great city with, but nothing lingered in their memories from that time. Only he remembered. Emet-Selch remembered all too much, all too vividly, and never did he feel better for it. 

He always wonders: is this happiness? Not knowing? Not remembering? He has watched shards of her blossom and wither, grow old and die — and he has always wanted to ask. But she will never understand the question. Not as she is, splintered and broken, unable to take in anything he has to say.

He does not have high hopes for her now, either. Seven times rejoined, sure, but does it matter? Can anything but being whole be enough?

A man can dream, though. He often does — sleep offers respite the like of which nothing else does, succour for his weary soul, dragged back to serve in duty over and over. There will be no rest for centuries still, no relief from the cause. 

He closes his eyes, taking a sip of the cool wine. It has nothing on Garlean vintages. This entire shard is a disappointment. The things he puts himself through for the Ardor.

And for the Ardor, he will have to watch another fractured remnant of her die. It is inevitable. 

He puts the wineglass down. It nags at him, and loath as he it to admit it, he feels compelled to indulge a little. To get closer. It has been so long, and only in dreams. 

Elidibus is right to worry. But the others need not know. Not then, not now. 

Only the dead, and only dreams, will know the full truth of it. 


	2. The Chariot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (small note: I know now (Sept 2020) that Urianger's voice is a bit messy and I wholly intend to go back and fix it once I finish the entire fic. I am sorry for any cringe inflicted upon English majors out there, I love you, I'm just an ESL person with two brain cells have mercy.)
> 
> Chapter 2: The Chariot. _The path ahead of you seems righteous, but if approached carelessly will lead to you going astray._

In ancient places, buried deep from prying eyes underneath the waves of the Tempest, Emet-Selch tears open a ravine and begins anew. It is a doomed world anyway. What magic he creates will be undone in due time. What he does here will not matter in the long run. Indulgences are all he has now.

Alone, he starts to build Amaurot. 

Piece by piece, he draws up the outlines first. He remembers still the golden trims of the streets, the glittering crystals adorning the skyscrapers stretching upwards. He remembers the expertly cut stones, carved and molded to interlock in the squares. He remembers the curving trees, how the heavy blossom petals fell from them, and he think them into existence. 

Structure by structure his hands weave memories into reality, figments that have drifted in his mind taking solid shape before him. He has done it many times in his dreams already, block by block, pulling and coalescing matter together like they did on the Star before it fractured. 

Yet… He sighs, his hands pausing as they are held high like an orchestra conductor’s. It is just a copy of a copy. If one were to look too close, all of it would collapse. He never had her skill at things like this, at creating something filled with true life. His talents lie forever in the undoing.   
He misses the scents the most. Those are the hardest to get right, and he never thought much about it when the world was whole. The rain on streets, the fragrant blooms curling across hard walls, the cool waterways. He can only make what he remembers. Even he cannot recall what the notes of scents were, though many unbidden memories try to suggest additions. Her skin coming in from the garden. Her hair beneath sunlight. Her, her, her. She curses him even now.

It is always tempting to remake her home. It is always a mistake. He has done these motions before, on worlds now gone and rejoined. Nothing good ever came from remaking her home.

Instead, he remembers Hythlodaeus and starts to weave him into existence. A memory floats by, one of Hythlodaeus scrutinising a creation Hades made before he was ascended to Emet-Selch, and Hythlodaeus of course finding the flaws at the seams. He knows immediately that the re-creation is not entirely the same as the others, imbued with too many recollections, too much awareness. A shade not quite a shade, and still not a real Amaurotine. 

It borders on a mistake. One of the many mistakes he once undid, to keep the balance. Another life, another time, eons ago…

Still. Emet-Selch choses not to undo him. Not yet. 

Today is a day of creation. A joyous movement in the middle of the endless cascade of destruction, repeated over and over again across thirteen shards. Today, he will make something flourish again.

With eyes closed, aether swirling around his hands, he can almost smell Amaurot again.

* * *

  
In the soft twilight bathing her Pendants suite, Qestra attends to her flowers and plants. She has used a considerable amount of the discretionary funds the Crystal Exarch allotted her, though it hardly seems to have made a dent. The flower market stalls all know her face by now, tripping over themselves to show her a rare sprout gathered from a distant field. 

Her suite is overflowing with greenery. Every empty space has a plant on it, tended to meticulously by her as an evening ritual to unwind. She has left many rooms behind her like this, and she knows that one day, she will leave these behind too. It makes her take extra pride in them. A small legacy, however fleeting.

She left a garden behind in her home village, too. Ever since her grandmother taught her how to, she was growing and cross-breeding, paying meticulous attention to pollen and pollination, growing things no one in the village had seen before. But the soil beyond the forest did not have the same nutrients in it. Things never grew quite the same, and she did not have time to dote upon petals and stems to nourish them into massive things. 

So she did this instead. Piece by piece, day by day until she leaves, she tends to her darling potted plants. 

A flash cuts across the sky outside, but there is no crack of thunder. Rain would be welcome. The soft patter of it always makes her feel safe. 

Picking up the small scissors she snips off a cutting promised to Alisaie. She hopes this one won’t die, but if Alisaie fails, there will be another and another. Growth springs eternal.

Another flash of light, and a peculiar sensation starts to build at the back of her neck. It happens so fast that she continues doing the movements of cutting without pause, but there are no plant stems left to slice through. Lights float at the edge of her vision and her body begins to feel distant, as if she is falling asleep. 

Dreams and echoes are vastly different, normally. One is an ache, a pounding between her temples and the pulse racing, hearing her own heartbeat thundering above all and then another’s until her vision fills with what they saw and experienced. The other is a pleasant escape. 

This one… She cannot tell. She is in both places at once, the dream-echo and the suite, the edges of them blurring and shifting in and out of each other. When she tries to look at her own hands, she sees someone else’s superimposed over her own. 

Beyond the suite, she sees a garden, splendid and filled with unknown plants. There are flowers she cannot name, and they are all glowing. Rage brims up, hot and liquid and ravenous for destruction. It hurts with how much she wants to destroy. It hurts because he has hurt her. He?

“You lied to me.” A voice, strange and different, speaking in a language she has never heard before yet understands every single word, understands the urgent intonation and emotional inflection. “You took me here and you lied.”

She realises whoever is speaking is using her body, her throat, to do it. 

There is something missing in this scene. A dark shadow that passes by but never takes form. 

“Do you even understand why I’m angry?” There is fire. There are hands burning and it hurts, but nowhere near as much as what is unfurling inside, white-hot feelings that feel primordial in their fury. An anger to beget all furies. 

The shadow tries to hold her hands but they push him away — so it is him, Qestra thinks, and the shadow coalesces into a form. She cannot stand to look at him. It hurts to look at him, hurts to consider all the things he has done. Hurts to know that there is still love beating inside them despite it all. Them. Qestra cannot separate herself from this other person.

“Do you even care? What about my choice?”

They — Qestra, and the body she inhibits — look up. The sky is black, no stars, just a hazy sky shivering at the cusp of nightfall. The fire engulfs the garden surrounding them, ash filling up the air. She wants to weep and she wants to scream. 

“I cannot do this. Please. Let me go.”

His hands are on them, closing around their wrists. He holds on tight, his breath hot against their neck. 

“Let me leave.”

Their jaw is set hard, and though they are weeping their rage is absolute. It will continue to burn until it consumes all. The sky fills up with smoke. 

His lips are on their neck and it tests their resolve for a brief second, but they steel themselves. He will not win like this. His charm cannot fix every horrible thing he does. _What other horrible things has he done?_

They stifle a gasp when he touches their jaw, his long cool fingers like ice against their burning hot body. He must think they are on fire themselves. His fingertips press against their lips, and for a brief moment he presses his body against their back, hard and needy, teeth grazing their bare shoulder.

And then, he releases them. 

The fire rages on, but he is gone from the garden. Flames lap at the darkness, pushing it away. The earth trembles underneath their feet. 

They walk up to the oil-slick pond at the heart of it and gaze down at the reflection. Qestra sees herself, and an outline of someone else shimmering just behind her. They feel emptier than ever before, holding on to the rage when everything else is disappearing.

“You must understand that he will remember this differently.” She is not entirely sure which one of them is speaking. “You must understand. He will always see me before he sees you.” 

When the dream-echo ends, Qestra’s legs give way under her and she narrowly avoids spearing her hand on the delicate scissor. The feelings continue to well up in her, but none moreso than the rage. It is a strange kind of fury, one she has not felt since — oh. _Oh._

A sizzle catches her attention and she looks up. All her plants are smouldering, embers floating in the air until all the petals are kindled. In a burst of flames, they all turn to ash, raining down around her.

“Oh.” And then. “ _Fuck_.”

* * *

After clearing up the ash and snuffing out the last embers still going through the networked roots in soil, Qestra fills the bathtub and sinks in. It is morning already, so much time lost, and yet not a trace of sleepiness in her. 

Many things are shifting in her, and the naked fury still burns inside her, but more foreign now. It is not her rage. It never was her rage. But whose is it? 

Her hands are too wet to handle the cards directly, but she spends her magic to shuffle them in mid-air, floating above the water. This used to impress nobles decades ago. Simple flourishes always net a bigger tip. 

_What is this all about._ The card turns over and she frowns. The Lovers, again. _Who are they._ Altering the question, trying to determine if it is an error of syntax or intention, but no. Lovers. _What does Emet-Selch have to do with this._ It springs into her mind unbidden, but once it is there, she knows it matters. 

No card comes out for the longest time. Then, slowly, one tips out and hangs in the air sideways. The Chariot. 

Urianger mentioned this to her during his lecture: even how the cards fall out matters. It means that the message of the card changes. So where the Chariot would be forging ahead, determined and righteous on its path, now it is veering off course towards uncertain future.

She sighs. She needs help.

Towelling herself off, she changes into a loose, light dress and pins up her still-wet hair to head upstairs to Urianger’s attic loft. Water is still dripping down her neck as she knocks on his door. 

Before he has even uttered a greeting she blurts out: “The cards are flawed.” 

Urianger blinks. “I beg thy pardon?”

She pushes past him into his suite, eyeing the half-unpacked coffers of books and the desk covered in paper and parchment rolls. “I need you to do a reading of me. With your cards. Now.”

Urianger tries to make a grand show of it, but she shakes her head and he resigns himself to a hasty one. He takes her hands and puts them around his cards, his on top of hers. Distantly, she feels like someone is pulling at a cord inside of her, just once, and then lets go. 

Taking the deck from her palms, he pulls two cards. The Lovers and the Chariot. 

She frowns. “Read me again.”

“The outcome will be no different simply because thine questions repeats.” Urianger places the cards down on the desk and folds his arms. “Prithee, what doth truly bother thou?”

“I…” Can she tell him about the dream-echo-vision? Can she tell him about how all the plants burnt to dust in front of her, channeling a rage she could not control? An anger not even her own? And how she feels like Emet-Selch has a hand in all of this, despite no proof? No. The words are just too many and too inaccurate. Instead, she throws up her deck on the table. “Does the aether of it feel corrupted? Odd?”

“’Tis Y’shtola with the true aether judgement, who would be a better judge of that than me.” Still, he picks it up and fans out the cards. For a minute he runs his fingers across the back of them, then flips them over and shakes his head. “Nay. I sense only thine connection with it.”

“I need to know if he did something, manipulated the aether. Influenced the reading somehow.” Too late does she catch the slip of her tongue. 

“Him?” Urianger quirks an eyebrow, eyeing her for a few moments. “Ah. Thou read the Ascian.” He is all too sharp for his own good.

“It was an exchange. Fruitful exchange.” She has her doubts about how much she truly learned, in the end: it has all become muddled up in her own messiness, something familiar and terrifying stirring up in her. 

“So he doth make good on his word, then. To the hero alone. That be valuable knowledge, though what we can do with such wisdom at this stage is an obscured course of action.” 

“I actually wanted to ask you, but now that the secret is out I guess I can be more direct.” She pulls up a chair and sits down. “When you got close with the warriors of Darkness… What did you do? How did you do it?”

“Now what spurs this line of questioning?”

“Call it professional curiosity.”

“’Tis more than that. I have done my own readings, alone, and I hath foreseen this coming. What I did not see was how it wouldst be here, and now.” Of course. Astrologians. All cut from the same cloth, peering at the aetherweave to try and spin a better future. Though where she plucks at the strings already laid in place, Urianger gazes ahead toward a hundred futures to try and safeguard against the wrong choices. “Be thou certain?”

“No. But I am curious.”

“Embarking on a dark, lonely path… For curiosity alone?”

She puts her hand over Urianger’s. “Don’t make me say it. If you saw the futures, you know.”

He closes his eyes, turning his face up to the ceiling. “My attempts yielded many paths, and all of them fragile. Darkness obscures mine vision. Thou would embark on a journey-“

“I don’t like hearing my future foretold.”

“Forgive me.” He takes her hand and squeezes it, his voice warming. “Thou will have to get close to him to learn from him. ’Tis not without risks.” It makes her curious what else he has seen — and how many of those choices ended with her death. She does not want to know, in the end.

“I have lived a long life. I know how to get under a man’s skin.”

Urianger blushes and averts his eyes down to the notebook in front of him. “I did spend my night awake, to transcribe what I could remember about Solus zos Galvus from the biographies,” he says, moving swiftly on. “If we are to have him around, as thee so boldly agreed upon, it may be pertinent to at least study the one historical figure we know he has been.”

“We have no way of knowing how much of that was an act.”

“We do not. It is, however, our only lead on him. It would behoove us to pursue it to at least begin filling in the lines of our shadowy companion.” He offers her one of the notebooks, and she takes it with a nod.

Together they pour over the documents, Urianger ordering up food and refreshments for them both as she cycles between pacing and reading. Her mind races, making Urianger write down her thoughts as her hands still shake from the echo-vision. 

Qestra had avoided looking too deeply into Solus zos Galvus, or the Garlean Empire as a whole. After her failed assassination attempt in her foolish youth, she had washed her hands of it all, trying not to think about the what ifs. Now here, she stands face to face with it. She could have ended so much right then and there, nipped the Empire in its bud, thrown it into chaos from which they could never recover, couldn’t she? 

Instead she finds herself on constant clean-up duty, righting wrongs. Had her aim been truer. Had her dagger sunk deeper. Had she made sure he truly was dead before fleeing.

Or maybe she had killed him. The thought strikes like ice. Maybe he did die that day, and Emet-Selch just sought out a new body. It is a thought which does not bring her comfort.

_“He will always see me before he sees you.”_

She blinks, and the whole day has gone by. Urianger is bent over the paper, scribbling away, unaware of her shock at how fast time has passed. Her body screams for sleep and she sighs. 

“I need to rest.” She waits for the ink to dry before taking the notes from Urianger. “Not a word of this to the twins. Or Thancred.” 

“They would only wish to help thee, as is our wont.”

She gives him a sidelong glance. “Urianger… Don’t. The less known of this, the better. There will come a time to ask forgiveness later, when all is done, and the larger image can be seen. Don’t you agree?”

She is no fool. Of course Urianger keeps secrets because he knows not how to stop doing it, knows not how to stop setting things in motion behind their backs. It is a habit that will one day ruin everything for him, she is sure of it, but she allows it. What else can she do?

“Do you think I’m making a mistake doing this?” she asks.

“Is it truly for me to judge, considering what my actions have wrought in the past?”

“Yes,” she says, not hesitating. “I ask because I care to know.” 

“Nay. The Ascians have made their attempts in the past to speak to us, to cajole or goad us, even meeting with us in the shadows to get us to do their bidding. Though it may feel like stooping to their level, as long as the cause is just…” He lowers his eyes, smiling sadly. “Keep thine eyes and heart firmly aimed at the end, and let it console thee on the walk through the darkness. ’Tis the only way through it.”

On her way back to her room, she flips through the pages, backtracking through her own thoughts. _Theatre patron - dramatic? Definitely. Favourite plays? Can they be leveraged or studied somehow? Did he commission plays?_ Next page. _Noted for his love of wine and high cuisine. Often invited master culinarians to prove their worth._ Of course.

As she sinks down on her bed to finally let sleep take her, a plan of sorts for a first step starts taking shape in her mind. And then, nothing but blissful and encompassing darkness. 

* * *

Emet-Selch loses himself in the creation too easily, and then in the recovery after. It is days from their last meeting when he returns to the Crystarium to resume his work, and observation is his forte. From up above on the upper walkways of the Crystarium he follows what Qestra is doing in the markets. Oh, how she has endeared herself to this new world so quickly. People greet her, stop her to talk about things, and she smiles and nods like she cares. By Zodiark, she might actually care. How quaint. He takes note of how eager the Scion’s elezen twins are to speak with her, practically bouncing up to her when they spot her in the flower market. She towers over them, the one clad in red just barely at her waist-height. The difference looks ridiculous. 

A ripple in the aether currents of the world, barely perceptible to anyone but him, alerts him of another bothersome pest. Emet-Selch’s masterful avoidance of Elidibus has come to an end.

“Ah. Esteemed Emet-Selch.” 

Typical. One can only evade the Emissary for a while, before he finds you. “Most High Elidibus.” Emet-Selch affects reverence, bowing. It is all a show. 

“This body again?” Elidibus’ flat voice still conveys all that Emet-Selch needs to know. The Emissary is displeased.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. You seem to have grown attached.”

“It is a matter of convenience.” Mostly. 

“There is convenience, and there is fondness. Do not get them confused.”

“I know what things mean.” Emet-Selch does not hold back on his irritation. He has endured many a long year with Elidibus and his stickler behaviour. It just gets worse by the century. 

Elidius says nothing in return. 

“But the Emissary did not come here to chastise me alone for my fleshly transgressions, did he? Of course not. You came to judge my progress.”

”How goes the work?”

”She is here.” He nods down at the flower stall below them, Elidibus turning his face towards it. As they watch, Qestra is talking with a seller, going through the plants and flowers he has lined up, taking her time as she goes over every single petal and stem. “Considering where our previous efforts fell short in efficacy, I have decided on a different approach, but far simpler than Lahabrea’s complex schemes. All I need to do is win her trust, and erode all her hopes without her knowing.” Emet-Selch smiles, despite himself. “It goes well so far. She has accepted my help, and I will do what the others failed: tear them apart from inside out. Already she is beginning to have doubts.”

”Sowing seeds of discontent again, I see.”

”It has worked before. It will work again. It takes so little to splinter them, to make them turn on each other.”

Below, he sees Qestra turn to look up at him. Her expression is unreadable at this distance, but their eyes meet. Even like this, she is trying to pin him down.

“Good. You have always been the most efficient in these matters, Emet-Selch.” Elidibus is about to leave when he pauses. “Will her soul be a problem?”

He sees her ears twitch. She cannot hear him up here, can she? He is unsure.

Emet-Selch bristles. “Of course not. A broken thing does not endear itself to me, despite all that.”

“Good. We would not want for you to waver again.” Elidibus gives the smallest of smiles. “It is good to see you so focused, Emet-Selch. Your rest may have been interrupted, but the cause is just. The Rejoining comes closer and closer. By His will, our people will be made whole again.”

“By His will.”

Elidibus nods, leaving through a rift. Gone in a second. 

Emet-Selch exhales, turning his attention back to the market. She has disappeared, but he has time. Instead he watches the Scions, moving unaware of each other, so close and so caught up in their own problems.

“There you are.” Qestra comes up next to him, leaning her elbows on the handrail. “I thought I saw you up here.”

“I prefer it away from the crowds,” he says. “Less of a risk to get pestered by an overzealous vendor demanding I look at useless trinkets.”

She glances down over the railing. “And you have a good viewing advantage here. I will be mindful to keep an eye on it in the future.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She turns towards him and he notices now that she is dressed differently from the first time they met. The neckline plunges low between her breasts, the dress barely hanging on to her shoulders. She is planning something — the smile she shoots him all but confirms it. “Have dinner with me.”

“What, no sweet words of endearment to ease me into it? Nothing more poetic than this? I decline. If you are going to show up like this, turn on the charm.”

She narrows her eyes, but plays along. As she places a hand over his gloved one, she leans closer. He catches a whiff of her perfume again, and again he cannot place it except for that one time in the Garlean Empire’s nascent days. She looks at him with heavy-lidded eyes. It is almost too seductive, but he finds himself not minding that. 

“I have thought about your offer,” she says, “and it is a grand one. I feel as if I have not offered the same open hand back to you. Let me make amends. Let us have dinner together, tomorrow, and we can speak candidly in private. Open ourselves to one another. No masks, no facades.” She quirks an eyebrow. “Better?”

“Tempting, but you should sweeten the deal.”

She groans, slumping against the railing. “Then what do you want? Just spit it out. I am no actress.”

“I want to hear some things from you. A particular story comes to mind.” He places a hand on the railing behind her, leaning closer. The other reaches up to tug his shirt collar down. “You remember this night vividly, don’t you?” For a second, he lets the gruesome scene of her crime against him in another life flash by. The knife in the throat, how his voice was never the same. The scar that stayed with the old body until it died. If she has the so-called Echo, let her see it. Let Hydaelyn’s blessing be used to haunt her. 

It must be working, because her expression changes. 

“You are greedy.” Her eyes are still on his throat, he realises. “Greedy and terrible.” She presses on the illusion of the scar, one of the details he did not give this newly molded body, and she maintains eye contact as she presses down harder. “You remember it too, I’m sure.”

“But…” The body he inhabits gasps. He ties himself to the flesh of his vessels in a way that lets him experience the divine highs of pleasure the other Ascians deny themselves, but it leaves him open to the depths of pain as well. She is pressing down on the wind pipe hard enough to make breathing a struggle, and he grabs her wrist to force her to ease up so he can speak. “I want to hear you tell it.” 

“Fine,” she snaps, pulling her hand away from him and slipping out from the position he has her pinned in as if it did not matter. “Tomorrow night, at sunset. Don’t be late.”

Emet-Selch smiles to himself, watching her back as she leaves. Turns out that she _is_ fun, after all. 


	3. The High Priestess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: The High Priestess.  
>  _Secrecy abounds, and to navigate them to guard the truth is a dance you know well. Suppressing the truth, however, will only lead to more suffering._

Qestra’s day is a flurry of small errands. Normally, she does not care to put this much energy into something so trivial as a dinner, but she wants to impress Emet-Selch. The closer to him she can get the faster she can get to the truth of the matter, and then out. It is what she tells herself, at least. It will be that simple. It has to be that simple. Anything else would be too much to consider. 

After picking up her evening dress from the tailor, she heads to the goldsmith to pick out something just right. The jeweler helps her pick out a delicate golden chain, and with some adjustments she sets off back to her suite to get ready. A quick bath and with hair pinned up, she dresses. At last, having put her outfit together, she stares at herself in the mirror. 

An emerald green dress that reaches all the way to her ankles, with long sleeves to balance out the plunge neckline. Between her breasts, several golden chains interlock and link up to one that rests around her neck. The slits on the sides run up to the top of her thighs, but layer on top of each other so that her legs are only visible when she sits. She likes it, but she picked through the long list of supposed details Solus zos Galvus enjoyed until she found some she herself felt like working with. Changing everything about herself to appeal to him is not something she will do, but she will consider small concessions. A sprinkling of details to put him at ease. Or, at least the persona of Solus zos Galvus.

She sighs. End of the day, she has no idea who he is, really. An Ascian who has lived longer than she can wrap her mind around. An Ascian who walked up to her and wanted to work with her, for some unfathomable reason. 

For the final touch, she plucks a full blossom from one of the newly purchased plants and crushes it between her fingers, rubbing the fragrant petals against her pulse points. It is one of those details that is the same on the Source and the First, how it smells. Name is different, color is a paler hue of blue, but the scent remains the same. 

The aether in the room changes for a split second and she turns to look over her shoulder. “You know, it is customary to knock,” she says to Emet-Selch, brushing off her hands before turning to him. “Us weak mortals like to respect privacy.”

“You know full well what I am,” he says. He quirks an eyebrow, taking in the sight of her. “You did your homework.”

“Is it that unsubtle to you?”

“I find it charming that you would try.” 

She forces a smile, unsure what to make of his comment. “Shall we?” She gestures at the door.

“Of course.” He snaps his fingers and in the blink of an eye she is elsewhere, her heels sinking into the soft grass and causing her to lose her balance. “What, you thought we would walk?” The amusement in his voice is palpable. 

“I thought you’d take me to an establishment.”

“Why would I? No one else there would be of interest to me, and merely an annoyance. We wouldn’t be able to talk candidly. Besides, the Crystarium, for all its hailed virtues, lacks in the finer points of dining — and you have seen fit to get yourself banned from Eulmore.” He gestures towards an opening in a hedge, flower bushes lining a path. “After you.” 

She does her best not to glance back at him. Instead, she squares her shoulders and holds her chin up. The stone path leads them into a flourishing garden, lit up by floating lanterns. Above trees bend their branches to provide a soft shade from the fading light, and at the middle of the garden is a table for two, everything already laid out for them. 

“This is…”

“Yes, I know, beautiful.”

“Excessive.”

He rolls his eyes, pulling out the chair for her. “You really have no appreciation for artistic flair.”

“A dinner is a dinner,” she says, sitting down. “It does not need to be dressed up this extravagantly. The food will taste the same.”

“Oh, you wound me.” He takes the wine bottle and fills both their glasses. “To me, for gifting you with this feast of the senses, tailored to your enjoyment down to the simplest detail. And to you, who will find some pleasure in it despite your protestations.”

“Is that a threat or an offering?”

“An offering. I am laying out my kindness on the table for you, and you keep looking for a hidden blade. I assure you, there is none. We have no reason to turn on each other for now. So come, relax, and enjoy yourself. Have you not earned it, with all that light you are gathering within you.” He squints at her. “How it does not burn you, I wonder…” 

She wrinkles her nose, but raises her glass to toast with him. It pleases him, and it does not feel entirely bad to give him that. 

“Of course,” he resumes, “we are here for a purpose. To measure each other and hope neither is found wanting. But we can do that in a civilised manner, and far from the interjections of your friends.”

“How noble. I shall venture to not eat everything with my bare hands and spit the bones back at you.”

“If you would be so gracious, it’d be appreciated.” As he picks up a fork, food materialises on the platter in front of him. A fascinating trick. “Now, to business then. I am an open book, provided you ask the right questions.”

“Will you provide understandable answers?”

He wags his finger. “That is your flaw, and not mine.” 

She hides behind her wine glass, taking a sip to not say something out of turn. The taste makes her pause — it is delicious, divine even, but it feels like drinking in a place rather than a beverage. In her time at the Sharlayan Astrologian Academy, she had her fill of banquets and lavish dinners and got to know a range of wines from all over the lands, but never anything like this. It tastes like she is standing in the forest just after rain, when even the stones have a scent to them. It makes no sense. 

“Good, is it?”

“Not terrible.” She puts down the delicate glass and takes in the elaborate setting around them with new eyes. There are so many small details, like how flower vines hang down over them, the soft grass brushing her bare ankles, and the smells suffusing the place. It feels familiar but she cannot place it. If it was the forest she grew up in, things would be covered with condensation and sweat dripping down his brow.

He finishes his appetiser and in a blink, the plate is replaced with a new dish. Pulled out of thin aether. It strikes her that he probably created all of this himself. He didn’t find it, or gather it up. Why would anyone have a place a like this, tucked away in the middle of nowhere in Lakeland?

She wonders what else he can create. How taxing it is to do so, if at all. She wonders about the boundaries of Ascian power, a prospect so dizzying she has to distract herself. 

“What do you want?” She spits out the question. 

Emet-Selch pauses, a piece of rare meat perfectly cut on his fork poised in mid-air. “Tonight, tomorrow, from you or in a grander scheme of things? More precision is required.”

“At the bottom of it all, what is it you want?”

“Ah. You already know the answer to that.” He eats the piece of meat and puts down the fork. “The Rejoining, of course.”

“Is that all?”

“It is what any good Ascian would desire. The remaking of a fractured—”

She holds up her hand. “I don’t care about that. Say that the Rejoining had happened, if that helps you. All matters have been laid to rest, everything fixed and solved from your Ascian point of view. What then?”

He swirls the wine glass, watching the light filter through the red liquid. “Then my duty is long done. What do you do with a tool once it no longer has a use? You put it away, somewhere dark and quiet, and forget about it.”

“So that’s it? You just… Stop.”

“I have long dreamt of my well-earned rest. I was close to having a sliver of it, a brief respite, but events you had a hand in drew me back to this side of the living.” He sighs, looking up at her. “Does it worry you, hero? What you will do once it is all over?”

“That is far into the future.” 

“Indeed. Perhaps you will be so unlucky to die on the battlefield, having achieved nowhere near enough for the so-called equilibrium you strive for. Perhaps others will rise up and take your place, and the wheel of heroes and villains turns ever onward.” He smiles into his wine glass. “Perhaps you will succeed, and we will all be better for it. But that is not something to care about today.” 

Qestra hums in agreement, and they eat in silence for a long while, now and again looking at each other and away. It is not a comfortable silence, one shared between people who have known each other long enough to be able to not fill it, but he seems to derive some kind of amusement from it all. It spurs her to pretend it does not bother her, and she focuses entirely on the meal he has put in front of her.

She will admit, he knows something of her, enough to know what it is she loves to eat, enough to know what flowers she adores. 

On the other hand: it is a damn fine piece of red meat, better than she has had in a long time. The vegetables accompanying it, as well as the sauce on top, just add to the splendour. An emperor grows to have taste, apparently. 

“You can compliment me, you know,” Emet-Selch says. “It won’t kill you. At most it will perhaps wound your pride, if you must cling to that.”

“It is good,” she says, keeping her face even.

“One would hope.” He smirks. “I do not do things in half-measures, and from what I can see, neither do you.”

When she finishes her meal, the plate vanishes and is replaced with a platter of sliced fruits, the thin layer of skin peeled off even the grapes. She finds it a ridiculous attention to detail. 

“Is this what you ate in Garlemald?”

“Indulgences, however hedonistic, become something to live for at times. Asceticism has its places, of course, but an emperor must maintain a certain semblance of style and wealth.”

“Perhaps.” She picks up a berry between her fingertips and eats it. “Or he could just dismantle his empire and let the conquered live free. Just a thought.”

“All empires fall eventually. Time spares nothing.” He watches her as she eats, his eyes on her fingers. “But you will see that in due time, should you live that long. Though from what I gather, you already have lived quite some time.”

“A century goes by fast.”

“Is that how it feels? For me, each year is a year. Every minute of every day, experienced and endured.”

“One would think time passes faster when you have seen so much of it.”

“Time passes the same for me as it does for you. It is slow, tedious, and the years drag on.”

“Hmm.” She flicks her eyes to his throat, partially covered by the shirt collar. “So. You wished to talk about that.”

“Indeed I do. I would hear you tell me what happened that night, as you remember it, and spare me no detail. I do so love a good story of justice and hope.” He steeples his fingers, waiting eagerly. “Was the entire Sharlayan party out for my blood?”

She takes a deep breath. There are gaps in Qestra’s memory of that night, but she does not want Emet-Selch to know that. 

“The Sharlayan Academy in Dravania debated for weeks before they allowed a few of us to set off to Garlemald, you know. We were not allowed to call ourselves in any way an ambassadorial effort, merely meant to attend as neutral observers. Of course, the ones that went had their own agendas. Too many scholars with too many differing interests at heart.”

“And you came along why?”

“Because I hoped to find a better position. I had already been writing with a few interested in sponsoring me or even having me as their in-house resident, after I had passed my rejected thesis works around the houses. Sharlayans do not approve of application of their teachings for war purposes. I was not as prudent in my youth. I thought I could sell myself into a better research position with more freedom in Garlemald.”

The humiliation back then had stung so viciously. Everything she proposed got vetoed and denied, every paper she wrote got returned to her with massive re-works required. Her academic language was not refined enough, her conclusions not neutral enough, her research constantly undercut because her professors thought she aimed too low. When she first proposed to write about divination among Viera villages of her forest, they laughed at her, calling it folk superstitions with no merit. When she made an effort to not only explain and categorise but draw up teaching material for the bone rune system she grew up with, the committee rejected it for not being grounded in their accepted systems.

She loathed it there. She learned so much and all of it only out of spite, to take what she could and leave when she found a better opening. Her pride and frustration had gotten the better of her. 

“My wife handed over your letters after your attempted assassination,” Emet-Selch says, eyes closed and smile playing on his lips. “You showered her with praise, and sent so many samples of your works. You even sent her readings of her star charts, outlining her life in details she had never divulged to anyone. A very clever way to endear yourself to someone so high. Ambitious.”

“What was her name again? I seem to recall Adne…”

His eyes darken. “Ariadne.”

“Ah. Yes. She was beautiful.” She waits a heartbeat, two. “Did she ever learn the truth of you? Your true name?”

“You think Emet-Selch is my true name? It is a title, my dear. Just like Lahabrea and Elidibus are titles. And no, just because you think yourself so clever does not mean you will learn it either. It is a privilege you have not yet earned my trust for.”

“Did the woman who spent almost her entire life married to you learn it?”

“Many mortals know me their entire lives, love me with their whole hearts, and never learn it.”

“I don’t know who I pity more, them or you.”

Emet-Selch grins. “You wield your words like knives. It seems to be a pattern with you. But you are leading us astray from the tale you promised me.”

Qestra looks up at the restored night sky, none of the constellations here familiar to her. “Distance readings without having met the person are difficult. I got as much information as I could, worked out what the astral positions would have been on Ariadne’s day of birth, and worked from there. She was just kind enough to listen to me, and even kinder to extend the promise of employment if I could impress her again upon visiting.”

She remembers the jolt of satisfaction back then, being allowed to stay in the actual imperial palace’s guest wing, afforded a suite thrice the size of what her fellow academics had to settle for. She remembers walking all day through the city, trying to find the right tailor for the outfit she had in mind. What she wanted was an idea turned into perfect embodiment of what she wanted to be seen as: modern, brave, practical. 

What a fool she had been.

Emet-Selch looks into the distance. “She cried at my bedside for days after the attack, pleading for my forgiveness. You had been intended as an asset. A gift of foresight and astrological analysis. She wanted to impress me with showing you off.”

“Did you forgive her?”

“Of course. How could she know she had invited a murderer to her presence? She never tried again, though. Shame, for her ideas were always good, but you ruined her courage in that matter.”

Qestra will not apologise for that. “Yes, well. You remember the rest, I am sure.”

“I remember vividly, but I want to hear it from your lips.”

She remembers the end of the night, with her and the empress withdrawn to a private sitting room. The cards laid out on the table, wine having given her courage to be bold. She remembers the Seven of Cups, warning the empress of illusions that were clouding her path in life, of lies and secrets kept from her. She remembers looking at Emperor Solus zos Galvus as he came in to greet his wife, and then… Something else welling up in her. It had felt like darkness unfurling, blotting out her vision. 

He does not need to know that. In fact, she rather he not. 

“I saw you, and I don’t know what came over me. Anger, rage, something changing in the air with your presence. Our eyes met and it was like all the cards falling into place at once. That whatever favour I had hoped to win from your wife would not serve me in the end. Only destroy me.”

_He lied he lied he lied, he took me away and he lied and I knew all along, didn’t I—_

No. Focus.

Qestra remembers only a little, like the muscle memory of the act. She hated herself for so long — she could have done it properly. Everything needed to end the Garlean Empire before it even became a real threat, and she faltered. But even that rings false to her — she had hated her hands more for the opportunity they tore from her. Shamed twice, exiled from home, nowhere to go. All those years of effort and hard work, lost. Everything she had written, lost. Everything she had researched, lost. 

“So I reached for the letter opener your wife had left out next to her correspondence. It was not something I thought through, I just. Acted.” 

Emet-Selch smiles, his chin resting in hand, two fingers tapping on the cheekbone. “You go through all that meticulous effort, all that hard work just to get the promise of a sponsorship, and then you see me and decide to throw it all away? How peculiar.”

“I never claimed that it was a rational decision, but it was my decision.”

_Hate and love and love and hate seeing him again is just love, love, so much hate it hurts to see him again —_

Emet-Selch furrows his brows, but he does not push the point further.

“It was my first time killing a person. Maybe that was why I panicked. I hunted plenty in the forests, sliced open throats of animals and held them down as they bled out, offerings to the roots to nourish us. What was nourished by your blood pouring forth? Nothing. I remember thinking about that as I bolted, which is such an absurd thing to focus on in retrospect.”

She remembers running to the river to make sure any hounds lost her trail, and it was like another maw opening up in her. Fear and disappointment, rage and self-loathing all swirling up in her. The knowledge she would have to start over. The knowledge her disobedient hands had thrown her grand future away. 

_Give something to the river to find your way back, he said, so I gave of myself I gave it all away, I threw them in like sinking rocks and the river carried me back home, home to die away from him —  
  
_ Her memories are fraying at the edges. 

“Tell me then. What route did you take to escape?”

“I ran quicker than your guards, quicker than your magitek could follow. Bolted past everything, I didn’t stop until I reached a river.” 

_Walking to the river to find my way back out from this empty Underworld, this dead realm of the dead, what price did you pay, my horrid love, what have you done?_

No, she remembers plunging her aching hands into the icy cold water, stifling a scream. It was like jagged shards cutting through her skin, but she kept scrubbing at them to get the blood off.

_The river the river I plunged myself into the river and oh if I could have drowned I should have drowned but neither the living nor the dead could soothe me anymore —_

No. What are these flashes, these fragments that keep lodging themselves into crevices of her own memories, expanding and taking over? Who do they belong to? 

_I have always been here, always been part of you, just like you are of me —_

No. Her head hurts, and she pinches the bridge of her nose til it passes. 

“A bold story,” Emet-Selch says, putting down his glass and meeting her eyes. “I never forgot that night.” 

“Good,” she says.

“I had men looking for you everywhere, tracing you for years. They even went into the forests to make contact with your village, and keep an eye on it should you ever return.”

“Foolish waste of energy. I would never return. It is the law of my people.”

“Indeed. All along, you were right under my nose.”

“You could have exchanged notes with Lahabrea more often. It might have tipped you off.”

He grimaces. “Speaking to Lahabrea as he was toward the end was an exercise in futility. He would rather go on and on about some overly complex plan he had just set in motion, some new king he was whispering towards madness.”

“You sound as if you didn’t like him.”

“Aeons of Ardor breaks some men, more or less completely. But that is not for you to worry your pretty, pretty head with.”

She frowns. “So you went to my village.”

“Yes. You have never gone back there, have you? You haven’t seen how your flowers have been kept alive all this time, tended and cared for, loved as much as you are loved in your absence. How your mother prays each day for your well-being, for you to thrive wherever your feet have taken you, for roots to guide you to your new home. But you know all that, of course.”

“I don’t.” She looks down at her plate, the elaborate sweets on it still untouched. “So why are you telling me this? To rub it in? To let me know you killed them all, razed it like Garlemald is wont to do?”

“The thought crossed my mind. What better way to send you back to me than for revenge?” His smirk fades a little. “But no, I didn’t. I left it standing, untouched but watched. Until my dying day as emperor I had paid spies keeping an eye on everyone coming and going there. It was never you.”

_How long has it been, it’s been so long, and everything is not the same, can never be the same, broken and broken again, by his cursed hands—_

“What did you even want with me? Torture me? Humiliate me? Make me pay?”

He holds the palms of his hands up. “Nothing as crude as that. I merely wanted to ask some questions. You were not you when you attacked, were you? You felt yourself slip away as someone else surged up to control your entire body. I saw the fear in you before you ran.”

The hairs on her arms stand up. She wants to run again. It is like an instinct. The hum of the voice inside her, running alongside her own thoughts, is growing louder.

_There was love here in me before, so much love, but he, his hands, he broke the world he broke my heart he broke me and he will break you too, little one—_

“You’re guessing.”

He pushes the seat out and she stands up too, taking a step back. He does not advance on her, but holds out his hand. “I am not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just want to know: did you feel yourself slipping away then? Losing ground to something else?”

She holds her silence, glaring at him. 

“I guess not, hmm? Nothing else to say on the matter?” He shrugs. “Very well.”

“I think we are done for tonight.”

“For shame.” He takes a step closer to her, and she stays still. “I very much enjoyed our talk tonight, Qestra.” He is close, so close she can smell the wine on his lips, and he leans in close. His breath is hot against her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “But I have missed you more, Persephone.” 

_He greeted me he recognised me he still — after all this time he still —_

She feels it again. The great darkness unfurling, like storm clouds filling a sky up. This time, however, she is fully aware of everything that happens, but the movements are not Qestra’s. They are Persephone’s.

She pushes him up against the tree trunk and grabs him by his hair, pulling his head back and exposing his throat. With a snarled warning she has him pinned down, and he just… Smiles. He is enjoying this.

“Ah, my dearest… How I have missed you.” Qestra feels the tender touch of Emet-Selch on her skin, his fingertips tracing up the dress slit of her thighs. He is not trying to stop whatever is happening, and the waver in his voice makes her wonder. Is he greeting an enemy, or a lover? 

_He has changed so much, and still the same kind of adoration in his eyes, still the same veneration in his voice, how long has it been my love, how long?_

Emet-Selch works a hand loose from her grip and cups her cheek tenderly, brushing his thumb over her chin. “Hydaelyn has a cruel sense of humor. Look at you. Trapped in this body blessed by Her.”

She bares her teeth. “Don’t ruin her like you ruined me.” Is... Persephone protecting her?

“I will keep her safe, if you tell me this…” He touches his thumb to her lower lip, pressing down slightly. “What did you offer up to the river when you left me?”

_Forgotten things, mislaid loves, to forget him would be blissful, but I made an offering out of myself to cross back. I would have offered him in the heat of the moment, or so I thought…_

“I drowned my happiest memory of you.” 

Emet-Selch’s smile fades, his entire expression changes. She hurt him.

_Good._

And with that, Persephone withdraws again, leaving Qestra feeling hollow. She blinks, drawing in deep breaths, as if she forgot to breathe during the last minutes. A headache is thrumming between her temples.

Emet-Selch clears his throat, jolting Qestra into heightened awareness of how his neck is still under her hand. “Release me, if you would be so kind.”

“Oh. Right.” She is dazed, but complies, dropping her hands to her sides and taking a few steps back. 

Emet-Selch rubs at his throat, looking into the distance. 

“Who is Persephone?” Qestra asks, arms crossed over her chest. She feels faint. 

“A friend. Someone who died a very long time ago.” He smiles weakly, offering no further explanation.

There is more to it than that, has to be, but she is tired of this. She has enough of this game of shadows and half-truths for tonight. “Take me back to the Crystarium.”

“As you wish.” He snaps his fingers and they are back outside her suite. He takes her hand in his, holding it up to his face. “It has been an interesting night. I’m sure we will remember it for some time.” He presses a kiss to the back of her hand. 

Qestra snaps: her head hurts, she has something lodged inside her that is not her, that keeps possessing her body when neat Emet-Selch, and he is happy about it all? Hells take him. “How can you be satisfied with this outcome?”

He shrugs, still smiling. “This time she did not attempt to kill me. It is an improvement.”

“Her or me?”

He does not answer, and is gone in the next second. By the Twelve, she hates it when he does that. 

Stumbling into her suite, she barely manages to kick off her shoes before the headache takes her full-force and she falls onto the bed, groaning into her pillow. What did Persephone mean with don’t ruin her? What did he do? There are too many questions with him, always, too many unknowns ruining her. 

* * *

  
Alone in reconstructed Amaurot, Emet-Selch walks into one of the gardens copied from Persephone’s designs. He had a similar one built in the Garlean palace. He had it built in Allag too. Over and over, building a shrine to call her back to him, never being heard.

Emet-Selch will always remember that night she came back the first time, he is sure of it. The ages will unfurl again and again, the bodies now alive will wither and turn to dust and scatter to the wind, the cities that stand crumble and become earth, but he will remember. It is his duty, and his burden. Every life lived, every love dead, every child sired, every funeral attended. Every joyous kiss, every sleepless night.

Everyone else gets to forget. Her very own vessel gets to forget. Oh, how he envies them all. 

He was two years into being Emperor, throwing a masked ball to celebrate an anniversary, the kind Ariadne were fond of. He always indulged her, finding new ways to spoil her. To see her smile mattered. It made the effort of constructing Garlemald less tedious and boring, a hedonistic love to burn part of himself in.

Of course, Persephone had to come and ruin it all. If he did not know better, he would have put it down to jealousy.

And she had to come in that body. 

It was the end of the night, the ball winding down as he went to find his wife. The guards said Ariadne had withdrawn with one of the Sharlayan emissaries to her sitting room. He found them there, and the moment the masked Viera turned her eyes to him he knew. Like a bolt shooting through him. The eyes are the window to your soul, as so many shards believed, and with her it rang true. An intricate lace mask, beset with small pearls and chains, covered the rest of her face, but the eyes — he knew. Those eyes, the sheer power in them, he could never forget. 

They burned a hole through him, past all his lies and masks.

“Persephone,” he said. A plea, a beggar’s call for mercy. A coming home. A prayer answered.

She darted from the chair and moved so fast that no one else in the room could keep up. 

Of course he saw the blade, glinting in the dim light. Of course he saw the snarl on her lips. But he opened his arms wide, stepping towards her even as she raised the blade. He embraced her even as she stabbed him in the throat, driving the blade deep as he dug his fingers into her suit. 

He clung to her as the pain shot through his body, blood filling his throat and coming out of his mouth to spill all over her. Was this her sense of justice? Of balancing the scales? He fell to his knees, clinging to her dress, and he saw the change in her. Persephone retreating back, and instead a confused vessel remained. A house for her soul, knowing not what compels her to do what she does. 

There’s tragedy in that. She knows not who she is. She never will… Not without help. 

Shock hit her hard and all she did was stare at him for what seemed like eternity, blood dripping down her dress as she held her hands away from her body. A tremor went through her, then she let out a choked noise. She tore herself free from his hands and set off running, away from him. He watched her leave. It echoed of the first time she left him, it hurts the same, he thought, and then he drifted off. 

He awakened days later, attended to by dozens of medics. It took him another week until he could speak, throat rasping dry and words feeling like jagged glass shards. “Persephone… Find her. Find her.”

All he had left of her was a scrap of dress fabric, untainted by his blood. For a few days, it smelled of her, until that too faded away. 

Ariadne saw, of course. She knew, but she did not say anything, never asked about it, until on her deathbed when she turned to him and said: “I wasted my life loving you. I see now that you never told me the truth. Ever.” And then she refused to acknowledge him or any of their children again until she passed, two weeks later. 

It does not matter. Not anymore. Garlemald is just another empire to sow chaos with, doomed to fall. 

But Qestra. Now, there is promise in her. A sliver of it. 

Alone in Amaurot, Emet-Selch plucks a flower and breathes in deep of its scent. With a snap of his fingers, he sends it to rest on Qestra’s pillow. Perhaps she will hate it and throw it in his face, or perhaps it will unlock a memory in her. It is a foolish thing, to hope — he knows better, he does. But hope he does nonetheless. 


	4. Two of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4: Two of Swords. _You are having a difficult time discovering the truth of your current situation. Feeling blinded, you grasp through the darkness and the unknown. Yet note how the figure in the card is holding the two swords: it is a position and stance of power._

_Allies worthy of bearing the burden of truth._

Qestra has been turning over the things Emet-Selch said in the Crystal Tower, trying to figure them out. They almost make sense, but she does not like to dig too deep into what premonitions they hold. _Difficult decisions lie ahead._ His words hang in her mind like dark omens, much like her divination readings have been the last few days. As tempting as it is, she has never been a believer in divining the future. She will make the choices she makes, and live with the consequences. 

Still. What to make of it all? _Decisions best made with the benefit of knowledge to which only the eternal are privy._ She had wanted to accost him in private after it, but he was nowhere to be found. Infuriating bastard.

No matter. Emet-Selch can play his coy games of information all he wants. While the twins are off scouting for signs of Lightwardens elsewhere, she and the rest have set off to Rak’tika Greatwoods to find Y’shtola. Emet-Selch just happened to decide to come along, in a strange twist of fate. 

The Scions, of course, are not amused at his presence. She wishes he would keep his contact to just her, but she is also not entirely sure how selfish the motives of that reasoning is. Perhaps it is better this way. As long as the Scions are watching him and her, she will be on good behaviour. No secretive dinners alone, no blades pressed to his throat. As clean as it can be. And perhaps he too will behave, considering the annoyed glances Thancred keeps shooting at him. 

And now, they are at a crossroads of overgrown paths, with Urianger and Thancred arguing which way is the correct one. Their foray into Rak’tika Greatwoods is off to a grand start, indeed. 

Qestra rubs at her eyes, trying to stifle a yawn. “We should rest for a few hours,” she suggests when the debating lulls to a standstill. 

“’Tis an excellent suggestion,” Urianger says, doing a poor job of hiding his annoyance.

She throws her pack at Thancred. “You two can work it out together.” They need food, anyway. “Minfilia. Want to come along?”

Minfilia looks between Qestra and Thancred nervously, but Thancred nods.

“Go with her. Maybe you can learn a thing or two.”

“I-if you’re sure?” 

“I am.” Thancred glares at Qestra. “Maybe you can take our new friend too. If I suffer this Ascian’s company any longer I will not be held responsible.” 

Qestra scowls. “Fine.” She motions at Emet-Selch to come along and with a dramatic sigh, he peels himself away from the shade of the tree he is lounging in and joins her as they set off into the dense woods. She leads the way, tempering her pace to slow enough for Minfilia to keep up.

“You wanted something worth watching,” Qestra says to Emet-Selch when they are out of earshot of the road. “Is this it?”

“Petty squabbling over which way to go? Please. It is not them I have come to watch.” He sidles up next to her, his eyes on her hair. “You are wearing the flower still.”

Of course it was him that left it in her room. She should have known.

Her hand shoots up and plucks it out. “I forgot.” She should throw it away. Make a point. The problem is, she does like it — the subtle scent, the beautiful ombre of the colors bleeding into each other on the petals. Instead she tucks into a button hole on his coat lapel. The red and white of the petals match his outfit more than hers, anyway. 

He laughs. “You can admit to liking it, you know. You can admit to liking me.”

She glares at him. “Don’t confuse having you around as liking you.” She is hard-pressed enough as it is to explain why she even kept the flower, why she tucked it in her hair and kept it there. She does not want to consider anything as messy as liking someone, and besides, if there is anything in her that likes him, it’s just Persephone. Not Qestra. She knows better. 

“You were the one to accept my olive branch,” he points out. “You were the one so eager to explore the possibilities of what I knew that you invited me to dinner. Surely, not even your memory can be that bad.”

“Your talk will scare the beasts.” She does not want to get into this, not in front of Minfilia. 

Emet-Selch smiles as he mimes closing up his lips, and with a step backwards he fades into the shadows. She stares at the spot for a while, suppressing a shiver. Unnerving. 

A broken branch further into the woods alerts her and she taps Minfilia’s shoulder, motioning for her to move slower. They roll their feet over the fallen leaves and dry branches, minimising the sound their movements make. Despite it all, another sound distracts her.

“Your stomach is growling,” Qestra whispers.

Minfilia puts a hand over belly, stricken. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay.” Qestra reaches into her herb satchel and fishes out a couple of dried and salted orice roots. “You probably won’t like the taste much, but it will still the worst of the hunger.”

Minfilia takes them and hesitates before she tries, but she does not flinch at the taste. Stronger stomach than Qestra had at her age, for sure. 

“Do you find it difficult? To listen to your body?”

“I hear it. But I feel strange acting on it. As if it is not allowed.” She looks down. “I faint sometimes from the hunger and Thancred gets angry at me.”

“He’s not angry. He just worries.”

“It does not feel like worry.” 

“He gets like that. He’s not great at emotions.” She holds up a finger in front of her lips and drops into a crouch. 

Rolling her feet as she moves across the forest floor, each step measured and slow, she hones in on the stag. It is not old, and not strong, but it will do. She just needs to get a bit closer to ensure her strike does not miss. 

Her breath slows and the rest of the world falls away: it is just her and her prey. Even if it has been decades since she last hunted like this for dinner, it is part of who she is. She will never forget the motions of the hunt. 

It turns its head and she holds still while they make eye contact. Now or never. She pounces, shoving the blade deep and cutting the artery. She is fast and the whole thing is over before it has time to bolt. As she straddles the body to hold it down, she nods at Minfilia. “Here, come hold the antlers.”

“They are soft,” Minfilia says in wonder, running her fingertips over the fuzz. 

“And beautiful. A shame we don’t have more time. In my village we used to craft jewellery out of horns like these.” 

She works fast but takes the time to point out to Minfilia how to cut, how to split the meat from the skin. She holds up each piece of the stag to tell her how each piece can be used, one way or another, and internally she feels a sting of guilt at the waste they will leave behind of this. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Emet-Selch take form out of shadows and approach, dropping to a crouch as he watches her work. “Look at you,” he says, a strange note of admiration in his voice. “There were so many places that worshipped hunter-queens like this, covered in the blood of the land. The shrines they built, the veneration they held for their divinity made flesh.”

“This is just food,” Qestra replies. The way he is looking at her is more than she can manage, and she drops her eyes to the stag below her. “Nothing more.”

“True. And most of those queens later became primals that destroyed their worshippers before starving to death, forgotten and remembered only as myths. A fate one would hardly desire for you.” 

She pauses, knife poised. “Move, or I’ll get blood on your robe.” 

He takes a step back. “Forgive me, but it is always fascinating watching you work like this.”

She keeps her eyes on the final piece of edible meat she cuts free, folding it up in the cloth and handing over to Minfilia. “There. You can take it back to them. Straight that way — I can still hear them arguing.” Minfilia does as told, and when Qestra is certain she is gone far enough she looks up at Emet-Selch. “Do you want to die? Is that why you keep coming back to butt heads with me?”

“You entertain me.”

“I hardly find having a damn ghost possess my body and threaten your life entertaining, though considering what you Ascians do to us mortals, I guess it is par for the course with you.” She digs a hole for the stag’s head, whispering a hunter’s blessing upon it as she covers it with dirt, leaving the horns sticking up. Hopefully some other soul will find a use for what she leaves behind.

“You are a praying woman, then.” 

“I am respectful. I honor my traditions. I remember where I came from.”

“So you say.”

She brushes her hands off and stands up. “You keep dangling pieces of information above my head and never giving them to me. If you want to tell me something, spit it out.”

He taps a finger against his chin. “Mmm. No. The time will come when you are ready to hear what I have to say, but it is not today.”

“Want to watch me make my own mistakes then come crawling to you, begging for your help?”

“Tempting as it is, I am watching to see you not make the same mistakes others have made. Then, perhaps, we will find some common ground to work with.”

She swipes two fingers against his cheekbone, getting dirt and blood on his skin. “There. Now you have paid your due to the hunt.” Her fingertips linger a second too long and something opens up in her, a memory welling up from the depths of her.

_Another place, another time, where he stands before her like this. His gaze is different though. Hungrier. Less sad. His back straighter. His fingers are touching her hair, twirling a loose strand and gently tugging her nearer to him. He moves closer, their lips just about to touch—_

She breaks contact, eyes lingering on his lips. “We should head back.” She starts off, not caring if he is following or not. She just needs to head back to familiar ground, safe faces, and away from these moments with him. Everytime one of those memories float up it feels like she is staring down into an abyss she has no idea how to navigate, the dark waters and shadows tugging her in. 

And worst of it all, she finds herself yearning for it. 

* * *

After a quiet dinner by the campfire Thancred sits behind Minfilia, brushing through her hair before parting it in three sections to make a braid. Neither he nor Urianger have spoken much since she got back, at least not with each other. Minfilia has kept quiet as well, but now she watches Qestra with such intensity that it unnerves. 

“Yes?” Qestra asks. “Is there something wrong?”

“Do you know any good stories?” Minfilia blurts out. 

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Thancred told me everything about you, all that you have done on the Source. All your tales of heroism. I was wondering if you maybe knew some yourself. Stories that inspired you.”

She tilts her head, looking at Thancred. “I wonder what tall tales you filled her head with.”

“One hardly has to embellish to make everything you do sound extraordinary. Besides, mine are hardly suitable for her to hear.”

“I’m not a child!”

“Thancred’s exploits are barely appropriate for me to hear,” Qestra says wryly. “But I guess I know a few tales.”

“Then let’s hear it,” Emet-Selch says, coming forward out of the shadows. “I do so love a good story.” 

Thancred tenses up, tugging a bit too hard on Minfilia’s hair who grimaces.

Qestra looks up at Emet-Selch, patting the empty space next to her on the fallen tree she sits on. “You would do well to stop sneaking up on us.”

“And miss out on the reactions? It is part of the charm of it.” Still, he comes to sit down at a respectable distance from her. At least there is some obedience in him, when he deigns to acknowledge her commands.

“There was a tale my mother often told,” she begins, drawing upon a story she has not thought about in a long time. Something about the Rak’tika Greatwoods have stirred her memories of it though. “A Viera leaves her village to seek fortune in the great cities, but once there, she finds that they do not care one bit for her. She is not beautiful to them, she does not understand their language, nor the customs. So she keeps wandering, until she comes to a land where the rain is so cold it burns her skin.” Qestra pauses. “We didn’t have a word for snow in my village, but I guess what my mother meant to tell was how strange snow was.” 

She catches her breath, taking in the expressions of her listeners: Thancred is pretending not to listen, but he is. Urianger and Minfilia are paying rapt attention. “She starts selling matches so she can afford a space under the inn stairs at night, but no one wants to buy from her. As it gets colder, the nights get harder. She learns what it is to be alone, to freeze, to not know what the next day will bring. The few hours she manages to sleep, she always dreams of her village, but she knows she can never go back again.”

“Why?” Minfilia asks.

“To do so is to break against our sworn traditions. When you leave, you leave for good, and it is a price you have to come to terms with. Anyway. One particularly cold night, she has not managed to sell a single match. Frozen and tired, she lights a match and in the flame, she sees a vision of her home. The flame feels like the sun on her cheeks, the burning wood reminding her of the fires they sat around at night. When the flame reaches her fingertips, she lights another and sees it again: the forest, the warmth. She sees her home. One by one, the spent matches fall at her feet until she has only one left. She strikes it too, and this time she hears her mother’s voice calling to her. Her mother tells her everything will be fine, that she will be safe and warm soon.

“When the match goes out, she sinks to the ground. She is too cold to move, her feet frozen to the ground, and the falling snow muffles her weak cries for help — not that there is anyone out in the streets, anyway. As she shivers in the cold, she hears her mother calling again.

“The next morning, the townsfolk find her dead body frozen to the ground, a blissful smile on her lips. In the Viera village, they find the mother dead in her bed, her body covered in ice. Though she died far from home, and alone, her mother felt her suffering and sacrificed herself to call her soul to a safe afterlife. No matter how far one ventures, someone will remember you. Someone will mourn you when you die.”

For a while, they sit silent, then Thancred clears his throat. “If that is the fare you grew up on…”

“It’s the one I remember the most.”

“It’s so sad,” Minfilia says quietly. 

“It is just a story. We never saw anything like that happen for generations, anyway.”

Emet-Selch lets out a soft laugh. “Even in the greatest of sagas, there is a kernel of truth, a piece that actually happened. People just forget as they tell it again and again, embellishing and detracting, twisting the gory truth until it becomes a story told to children.” 

“You would know,” Thancred says, testy. 

“I would, yes.”

Minfilia turns to Emet-Selch, emboldened. “Then… Will you share one such story with us?”

“Now you too are encouraging him to speak?” Thancred finishes off the braid he has re-done three times already, then stands up. “Fine. But I don’t have to listen.” 

Emet-Selch watches Thancred leave, smugness written all over his face. “Pity. I do hope the rest of you will listen.”

“Please,” Qestra says dryly, “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“There are many versions of this story, of course, differing on many points, diverging from the origin to tell tales of morals, laws, rules. The greatest stories have no such offerings, no lessons to teach. They merely convey a story of emotion, and touch the listener’s heart. It is merely a story of love.”

“There once was a woman, born as the daughter of a goddess and a man, and from her mother she learnt the art of growing. Not just decorative plants, mind you, but all of the earth’s bounties. She merely had to desire a forest and it would spring up around her, fully formed and lush. This was forbidden knowledge, being as she was more mortal than divine, and even as her mother tried to hide her away, the other gods saw — and among them, some grew covetous, others jealous and furious. The king of gods wanted her gone so as to calm the strife stirring his divine realm, and demanded the god of the dead to take her away. 

“The god of death obeyed. He saw the discord caused by her existence, and as a measurer of souls and arbiter of the just, he found it frustrating. He came to her, on a night of the dark moon, with the intention to take her away to the Underworld. Instead, he was entranced by her beauty, charmed by her wit, and fell for her. As the moon set, he begged for her hand.

“It is told she went with him to his realm of the dead where he crowned her his queen. He lavished her with riches, with beauty and above all, with love. But she was not content to stay, and returned to the realm of the living, leaving her heartbroken king behind. 

She was changed by her time with him, though. When she wandered the earth, she not only grew flowers but wilted them as well. Each step she took, dead petals rained down into his kingdom.”

“Why?” Minfilia asks. 

“Why indeed. To remind him that she was alive and well, prospering far from him and his cold, dark kingdom? Or to remind him that she loved him even if she could not bring herself to stay with him?” Emet-Selch shrugs, smiling. “Her reasonings remained a mystery, and scholars debated. Then their academies fell, and the story mutated, changing to fit the next civilisation to hear it.”

“Indeed, for I heard it differently,” Urianger says, thoughtful. “That she, a goddess of all that grows and dies of the earth, was cut down by a jealous god after she spurred his advances. The god of death came to carry her soul to his kingdom neath the ground, but he noticed that she was not entirely dead. In his realm, her nursed her back to life, until she could no longer stay. For the realm of the dead cannot hold one who brings forth the growth of life and blooms. It is said that they both wept, for love had cast its charms upon them, and from their tears sprung forth a river between the living and the dead.

“She returneth to the world of the living, and spring burst forth. Death, however, has sapped her of some of her divinity, and mortals wishing to usurp her strength hunt her and strike her down. He comes to gather her up and nourish her back to life, but as he does she must leave again. So the cycle goes. Each time, she comes back to him a bit more diminished, a bit weaker. She changes for each death, growing into a wholly different person. He begs her to stay, offering her his throne, his crown, for he is deeply in love with her and fearful of losing her. _How can I know that you will be the one I fell in love with next time_ , he pleads. And she respondeth thus: _not even you are the same that I met upon my first death_.

“She is reincarnated, and she dies, and he loves her deaths and mourns her return to the living.” Urianger pauses, thoughtful. “A story of the dualities. Death and life, light and shadow. That one feared aspect is simply another side of the coin, and beloved by another.” 

“Where did you hear this?” Qestra asks softly.

Urianger blushes. “Sharlayan scholars may have scorned common tales, but gathered them nonetheless. Many a treasure were to be found in the libraries, if one deigned to look.”

“How the times change the stories.” Emet-Selch is looking at his gloved hands, fingers folded. “I have heard it so many times. In some versions, he is callous and cruel, taking her down to his underworld even as she screams and cries. Yet in others, it is she who asks for him to take her to his realm, and she only returns to the living because her friends and family demand her return — they mistake her cries of passion for cries of pain. There are a thousand versions of the tale. Perhaps the stories reveal more about the one who told them than the characters themselves.” 

There is another version she remembers hearing somewhere, and Qestra weighs it on her tongue. She looks at Emet-Selch, and he meets her eyes— but there is no smugness, just a strange kind of sorrow that overwhelms her. 

She wants to ask him what it is he wants. She wants to reach out and touch him. She wants Persephone to tell her what to do, to surrender to her and make him smile. But Persephone remains quiet and subdued, and even though it lasts no longer than a brief moment she cannot take it.

“Excuse me,” she says and hastily leaves them. She goes down to the lake a few yalms from the camp, far enough to be out of sight of them, and splashes her face with cool water. 

Stupid. She is being incredibly stupid. No one has time for her being this stupid. 

Why does him looking at her like that feel like a knife twisting around and around in her chest? 

A familiar voice says her name, and this is one she does not mind speaking to. Ardbert. At least he knows, in a way the others don’t. 

“What’s troubling you?” he asks. 

“How much have you been listening in on?” 

“A bit here and there. The benefit of being dead, I guess.” He shrugs. “You shouldn’t let him get to you so much. End of the day, he will chuck you over the edge of the world if it means he will get what he wants.”

“I know.” She feigns a smile, but Ardbert frowns.

“You don’t have to do that with me. I know what it is like. Having everyone depend on you to make the right judgement that you start putting yourself last. No one is asking you to get close to him but yourself.”

She rubs at her forehead. “There is something about him I can’t put my finger on. Like… Nevermind.” She shakes her head. “Did you ever think about just walking away from it all?”

“Sometimes. When it got difficult. When we didn’t know what to do next.”

She nods, keeping her thoughts to herself. 

Even though she knows she can never go back, that by leaving she forswore all rights she had to the forest and her home — she has been thinking about it more and more. In her dreams, she is allowed back, and all the ones she left are there to greet her. In her dreams, they smile and cry and hug. In her dreams, she forgets all about the Scions, all about Garlemald and the blessing of Hydaelyn and the astrological constellations. She gives it all up to sink her fingers back into the ground and plant the seeds for next season’s harvest. 

But she knows going back would be breaking against tradition. There will be no open arms. At best, she can expect an arrow through her neck from a wood-warder before she even glimpses the old familiar paths. Some days, even the thought of bleeding out alone in the forest she came from feels like a comfort. 

Someone approaches. She clears her mind, noting that Ardbert has seen fit to disappear, and breathes in deep.

Thancred pauses when he sees her, looking around. “Am I disturbing? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“No one. I was just working something out for myself.”

“Hmm.” He eyes her, but takes her at her word. Or so she hopes. “Minfilia was good with you today, I hear. She is very impressed with you.”

“She is sweet.” She nods up at the camp. “I’ll head back soon. You need not worry about me. I’m fine.” 

“You always are. But…” Thancred sighs, clearly uncomfortable. “Don’t think I’m blind, Qestra.” 

“What?”

“Our uninvited guest. He looks at you like he wants to devour you.” 

A chill runs down her spine. “Then that is on him.”

“You look like you _want_ him to do it.”

She keeps her mouth shut. 

“I’m not going to tell you what to do. But don’t presume the rest of us blind.” 

Behind Thancred she sees Emet-Selch standing in the shadows, smiling in that way that makes her want to either punch him or — _no_ , she reigns her own thoughts in and ignores him.

“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind,” she says to Thancred, pushing a reassuring smile onto her lips.

“Please do.” And with that, Thancred heads back to camp, not seeing the Ascian. 

Before Emet-Selch can say anything, she flips up her middle finger at him, his laughter ringing in her ears as she leaves the shore. 

Maybe he does want to devour someone, but it is not her. Only who she has inside her. She is just standing in the way. None of her feelings are her own, she reminds herself, just someone else's superimposing onto her nervous system. Nothing more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Qestra’s fairy tale is based on H.C Andersen’s _The Little Match Girl_ (1845). Emet-Selch's story based on the myth of Hades and Persephone, with wild re-imaginations my own spin.


	5. Five of Cups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: Five of Cups. _The future you hoped for did not come to pass. The loss of a love you thought would last forever haunts you, and you wrestle with the inability to move on, clinging to a hurt never healed._

Even under the heavy boughs of the Rak’tika Greatwoods, the presence of ever-lasting light keeps Emet-Selch all too aware of how out of order the First is. The balance of light and dark being so distorted to one side, he can feel how broken and shattered this world is. Of course, she thinks she can save it if she just tips the scale right, but he knows better. 

This world is an abomination to behold. Out of balance, out of order. The light will continue to chip away at what little remains until even that is swallowed. 

Still, all the same. To watch her do the work against forces that would snap lesser people in half, to watch her strive for an equilibrium, it proves something of hers. Her worth. If, by a stretch of the imagination, she succeeds, she has so much promise in her.

For now, he watches them from the shadows, disinterested in keeping up with their wild running around, solving problems of no concern for people in need. It does nothing to entertain him. And Qestra has kept a tight lock on Persephone, though he cannot be sure if he considers that a disappointment or a blessing.

All that rage Persephone holds still. Burning fury, all aimed at him. She is right, of course. He did lie. He did betray her. If his heart broke when she left, it was he who caused it. She is dangerous, like she always was. 

To rejoin her would at least be a move towards redemption in her eyes. To make right one thing. If she would accept him or reject him then, well, that is another heartbreak looming. But it is the least he can do for her, considering everything else he did to her. 

The aether warps near him and he rolls his eyes. Another Ascian come to annoy him. Excellent. Just what he needs. “Does Elidibus have you running his errands now?” Emet-Selch asks wryly. 

By the mask, he sees it is Pashtarot. A new one, perhaps. It does not actually matter to Emet-Selch, not anymore. They come and go with such feverish energy one can hardly tell them apart. “Elidibus requests a report.”

“Is he that bored on the Source?”

“Varis is refusing to make any further moves.”

Emet-Selch sighs. His grandson continues to be an utter disappointment playing at rebellion against the rules laid out to him. It is, however, not important enough to warrant his attention. “It is not my concern that Elidibus fails where so many others have succeeded.”

“You dare speak against him?” Pashtarot’s voice rises. 

Emet-Selch eyes him properly since he arrived. Ah. Of course. The darkness hangs fresh and vibrant all over him. “You are fresh from Zodiark’s tempering, I see.” Then he matters even less. Young and reckless and blind with devotion. “Fine. Let Elidibus know that this proceeds according to my plans. The balance will tip one way, and then back to where it needs to be.”

Pashtarot falls quiet, looking into the distance. Emet-Selch knows what he is staring at: Qestra. She is difficult to look away from, in that regard. “All that light… What are your plans?”

“Scale-tipping is a precarious act. And I have not the time, energy nor inclination to let you in on more than you need to know: it will work.”

“There are matters on the Source more pressing than this shard. Finish it and return.” 

Emet-Selch waves his hand dismissively. “Run along now. Tell Elidibus what he needs to hear.”

Alone again, he sighs. Qestra’s radiance is eye-catching, even from a distance. It will only grow worse if she continues to succeed on this path. What will all that light do with her, he wonders. Will she triumph, or surrender to its power, reduced to a sin eater? 

Either way, he will not look away. He cannot. Whatever happens to her, he will bear witness to it all, come glory or devastation. 

* * *

Blissful silence from Persephone does not last. 

Qestra is moving alongside Minfilia in the forest, sprinting as silent as possible, reflexes on alert as they dodge under low-hanging branches.

They had gone together to scout out the Eulmoran army arrival, but the wind must have shifted while they were watching. A soldier spotted them and before he had the time to issue any orders Qestra grabbed Minfilia and set off at a punishing pace, one the young girl can barely keep up with. 

They have no choice. She can hear the scouts coming, quick and fleet-footed but still no match for a Viera to outmanoeuvre. Mostly.

Minfilia stumbles and catches herself before she falls on face, her breathing laboured and struggling. Qestra stops and an arrow shoots past her. If she had taken just one more step it would have landed between her shoulder-blades. She does her best to suppress the ominous feeling of it, taking Minfilia’s hand sticky with mud and blood and hauling her up on her back. 

She pushed the girl too hard, so this is the least she can do. At least for a few hundred yalms, it should be fine. And a darker, more scheming part of her thinks, _at least they will not fire on the oracle if she covers my back_. At least it will help them both out. 

“Hold tight,” she whispers, and Minfilia does as told as they set off. Not as fast as she could go, and she has to roll her feet to account for the added weight. They are gaining on them, but from the feeling of Minfilia’s heart hammering against her back, she still needs some recovery. 

One moment, she is there in the forest, heart beating wild and sweat dripping down her back, eyes locked on the flower field marking the beginning of Fanow territory, and then in the next moment her vision goes double, layering up. The forest blurs in the outlines, the greenery taking on another shape, another place and time. Darkness cascades down at the edges of her visions, blotting out the light. She sees _stars_ for the first time in over a week. 

Not now. Any other time, any other day, but not now.

Darkness surrounds them, them being Persephone and Emet-Selch, but it is soft and warm, welcoming like a forest night. In his hands, he holds a halved pomegranate, the red juice of it dripping over his fingers. She digs her fingers into the soft flesh of the fruit, taking out seven seeds and eating them. He watches her with rapt attention — or is he? He keeps flickering between wearing a red mask and his own bare face.

_You are both blessed to get to see him like this, and cursed to never see him in his true glory. His true form. You are so small._

Are they even in a forest? Is it not a bed? Are they not naked? Is that not his hands on her skin — her naked, bare skin — her lips moving against his neck as he moans her name like a prayer? The memory bleeds into a hundred others, fracturing and distorting. 

_All these memories… Yes. I eat the seeds._

She swallows the seeds, the flavour of them unfolding on her tongue. She licks her lips and then cups his face, kissing him. He tries to be stoic but then he melts into her touch, and there is that need again, the one she has glimpsed in other memories. He deepens the kiss hungrily, his fingers on her jawline, her neck, tangling in her hair. 

_I want him to take me._

“I am ready,” she says. 

There’s a flicker of emotion across Emet-Selch’s face, and a blade shivering with shadows coalesces in his hand as his other arm encircles her waist. 

_Do you ever wonder what it’s like? To die?_

He laughs in bed, drawing circles on her skin with his fingertips. “I could show you.” He does not laugh now, just a smile that does not reach his eyes. 

He will show me. He will take me into the darkness.

She never stops watching his face, even as he slides the blade into her chest, under the ribs and straight into her heart. The pain is white-hot and burning, and she clings to his robe for as long as she can before her vision begins to dim. He touches her face as she slips away, tender, his voice whispering things she cannot hear anymore. And then, darkness. 

And then, he will take you too. 

Above them, the sky is on fire. 

No. No, wait. Persephone is gone, and the sky is not on fire with anything but light, but Qestra is disoriented enough that she stumbles. It happens so fast. She feels the root catch her foot, hears the audible crack, and topples over. Minfilia skids ahead of her on the forest floor, and Qestra kicks helplessly to try and free herself. A branch cracks and she looks up to meet the gaze of a Eulmore soldier.

She is fast, but he is faster. Even as the dagger hits right in his head, the arrow hits her leg and she screams for a second before she clamps down on her mouth. It is enough. They will find them now. 

Pushing down the pain she wrenches herself free and crawls over to the fallen soldier, taking his bow and quiver. It’s small enough that she might be able to get a few shots off, but the angle is awkward nonetheless. She can hear them coming, crashing through the undergrowth, their armour rustling.

A light blue shadow darts between the trees, attacking the first two that come through. Qestra misfires an arrow, two, but Minfilia has it all handled, quick and silent. She jumps from soldier to soldier, her daggers flashing until all that remains is blood dripping onto dry leaves, and the rattling death hacks of six soldiers around them. 

Qestra drops the bow and clutches at her leg, trying to channel healing into it to stem the surging pain. It’s too much for her. It begins to blur, the pain too strong for her to focus the proper amount of healing into herself. Minfilia falls to her knees, hands trembling as she tries, but her concentration falters and makes it worse. Qestra catches Minfilia’s wrists and pushes her hands away. “Get someone,” she gasps, sweating as she struggles to bite back another scream. 

It hurts. By the Twelve, by the light, it hurts. 

She can smell the blood on herself, not a lot but enough that beasts might catch a whiff. She eyes the fallen soldiers and finds her dagger, yanking it out of his throat. Clutching the dagger in her hand, she remains alert and tense at any noise. There is not much she can do if something came at her now, and the utter vulnerability of it all makes her furious. 

Does Persephone want her dead? Is that it? Is that why she keeps emerging at times like this, haunting her with memories, putting her life at risk? 

Of course, Persephone does not answer. She stays silent when it suits her, and fills Qestra’s mind with useless intimate memories when it does not. 

She is too in her own pain to notice that others are there until they touch her arm and she swings at Urianger, Thancred catching her fist before she can cause any real damage.

“Do be careful,” he says, but the wit in his voice is strained. “Urianger has a soft face.”

She wants to smile. She can’t. 

Urianger lops her arm over his shoulders and Thancred offers up his for her to support on. It is a lopsided walk back to Fanow, the cold sweat dripping down her body. Putting any weight on the left leg feels like blades slicing through her. The Viis come to help and carry her to a hammock bed, and Y’shtola is drawn by the noise. 

“What have you gotten yourself into?” Y’shtola asks, not giving her time to answer before a surge of aether passes through her leg. Ever with the curt bedside manners. “The bone is splintered. I can do a little to ease the worst of it, but you need to get a chirurgeon to move the bones into the correct position.”

“Can you not try to set it?”

“This is beyond my talents.” Y’shtola flicks her ear, but her voice has a slight tremble to it that only comes out when she is worried. It has been some time since Qestra heard it last. It does not calm her. “You have made a fine mess of yourself.”

“Do something!” Qestra growls, the pain starting to override everything else in her. “Anything!”

“Be calm, or you will only worsen it.” Y’shtola puts her finger to Qestra’s forehead, and she drifts away, barely conscious as the others try their best to attend to her injury. Their faces float in and out, and she gathers small scraps of information. That Eulmore is coming. That trouble is brewing, though Thancred and Minfilia are already at work routing them. Y’shtola saying she is heading to the ruins to try and find something important. 

And then, she is alone and awake, her wound dressed in compresses and a sedative draught half-imbibed, she finds she has little to do but stare at the canopy, the light filtering through the leaves. She holds up her hand over her face, and the motion of it reminds her of the overly sunny days in the jungle. The light is so different, though. It holds no warmth, just brightness. Blotting out thoughts and rest. 

“Half the forest must have heard your screaming,” Emet-Selch says dryly, sauntering in. “No wonder Eulmore has descended with such force.”

She opens her mouth to speak but her throat is too dry to form words. The water pitcher is just out of reach for her, to her consternation. Trying to reach it agitates the injured leg, and Emet-Selch sighs. 

“How frail your body is, at the end of the day.” He comes over to her bedside, pouring water into a glass and holding it out to her. “There, lest you think me cruel.” 

She sips the water, taking her time. He pulls up a chair and sits down, resting his elbows on his knees as he watches her. There is something to his expression that she cannot quite place, and she also does not know what to do with the undercurrent of feelings for him Persephone has left. The memory sensation of kissing him makes her wonder, for the briefest of moments, as her eyes look at his lips. 

No. Absolutely not. He is not to be trusted, not like that, at least. 

At last, she breaks her silence, her voice still raw. “Have I finally entertained you enough to gain some favour back, if you are here by my side?”

“Perhaps. Keeping an eye on your friends grows tedious, with the way they are constantly on the move.” He taps a finger against his lips. “That reminds me. I have wondered, exactly what do your companions think of how you tried to sell your services to the Empire once upon a time?”

“We forgive. We do better.” Not that she has exactly disclosed it to them. Or much of anything about herself and her past. 

“How magnanimous of them. I suspect Sharlayan did not look upon your acts with the same kindness.” 

“Sharlayan does not matter to me anymore.” She pulls herself up to a slightly more sitting position. If he wants to play with barbs and thorns, she will give back justly. “I read the historical accounts of Solus zos Galvus. You married. You had children. You were a celebrated patron of the arts. Why go through all that trouble for, what, creating an agent of chaos?”

“I did as required of my task.”

“You can build an empire without a family, without paying playwrights salaries to rival military generals. It does not quite add up. Your wife, your children, did they mean anything to you?”

“Does it matter to you to know? They are all dead now.”

“I just want to understand.”

“Yes. I loved them. I lost them. Does it satisfy you to hear that even I have a heart that can break?”

She smiles softly. “I never doubted that.” 

“You sound as if you did doubt. As if you can hardly comprehend why I would do that. Know this. Garlemald is not my first empire. I have built and I have destroyed many, many empires and kingdoms in my time. Garlemald matters for nothing, in the long run. What matters is that which lives on, past all of it. The stories you still tell of Allag will one day be replaced by the stories of Garlemald. Even you will one day be naught but a story.” 

“Ah yes. Stories. You seem fond of them.”

“Stories survive beyond the impossible. Never doubt the power of that. Long after your mortal years have run out, stories will continue to thrive.” He leans back, crossing his arms and looking away from her. “And do not make the mistake of thinking a mortal life passes in a heartbeat for me. Each year to you is a year to me. Every year I have lived, I have lived. Your mind cannot even begin to comprehend what those thousand upon thousands of years feel like. To be alone for all those years, well, it is a fool’s errand.”

“I think I would feel very tired, living as long as you have.”

He laughs, but it is not joyous. “Ah, yes. Rest is elusive, that is true. You can never have enough rest after all that time. Find pleasure in sleeping when you can.” 

She looks down into the empty water glass. “I have been thinking about the story you told.”

“You want to know how much of it is true.”

“I want to know how much of it relates to Persephone.”

His eyebrows knit together, but he seems more amused than annoyed. “Finally, you ask the right questions. Like I said, there is some truth to the story. And there is a lot of myth too.”

“Is there? Because she showed me how you killed her.”

“Which death?”

Qestra blinks. It is enough for him to feel he has the upper hand, and his entire demeanour changes. It is not cruelty, not exactly, but a sharper edge to him. 

“Yes, I killed her. Many, many times. Because she asked me to. But she did not deign to tell you that, did she? In fact, it seems she tells you precious little to help you.”

Qestra does not know what to believe, but at least she remembers one thing that bothered him. She might as well play it now. “She said she gave up her happiest memory of you, but what was your happiest memory of her?”

He sneers. “You are a handful today.”

“You push me, I push you.”

“Until we both go tumbling down. Hardly the spirit of cooperation I was hoping for with you.” 

“Perhaps we don’t have to fall, if you would actually give me something.”

He pulls off his glove and reaches over to her face. “You feel that you are owed? You asked about my happiest memory. You may as well have it.” His fingertip touches her temple as he imparts an echo onto her, but it is more direct than what she is used to. It is not her mind latching onto an image of someone else’s, but him actively giving it to her. It’s all the more intense for it, enveloping all her senses. 

The scent of flowers and dew hangs in the air, the night drawing towards a close with a light just about to break on a faraway horizon. She sees through his eyes as he watches Persephone work, keeping a distance. He does not want to disrupt her focus, but she is attentive to his presence, beckoning for him to come close without taking her eyes off the flowers spiralling upwards in intricate patterns along the wall.

She does resemble Qestra somewhat. The lips, the nose. The eyes. The rest is like someone sculpted her differently. It is unnerving to watch, like looking in the mirror and not recognising herself. Different enough to make them separate, close enough to be noticeable. 

“Most esteemed Emet-Selch.” She bows her head, smirking. “How kind of you to grace me with your honoured presence tonight.”

He does not like it when she does this, even less so today. “Hythlodaeus spoke to you then.”

“Maybe. Look at you, joining the convocation. What greatness will you achieve there?” She holds up a red flower. No, not quite a flower. It looks almost unreal, as if crafted from thin lines of crystal of light, but it grows out of the ground like a regular rose. She tucks the flower behind his ear. “I think you will do great things. If you put your mind to it.” 

“Always with the barbs. How you wound me.”

“I prefer to call it keeping your ego in line.” She looks at him and there is something in her eyes that draws him in, but before he can act on it she has resumed working. “I thought you would be happier today.”

“I am overjoyed,” he drawls, taking off his mask carefully so as not to disturb the flower she placed in his hair, placing the mask next to hers on a garden bench. “Hythlodaeus turned the offer down, and I was their second choice. There is an insult in there.”

“He wanted to see you prosper,” she says, touching a vine. Aether swirls from her fingertips and down into the ground, and the vine grows and grows, sprouting a hundred new flowers as it takes over the entire wall. “He asked me if I would second his suggestion, you know. You overthink it, as usual.” 

He rolls his eyes, moving to stand behind her as she works. He has always loved watching her creation process, the things she pulls out of her mind. She has so much bursting out of her that she keeps submitting the excess ideas to the bureau, offering up her designs for others to claim. It is where they first met — and where she first cut him down to size, critiquing his work.

Maybe he fell for her then already. He is not sure.

He wants to touch her hair, wants to draw in deeper of her scent. Qestra feels how much he aches to have her, how he wants to be near her. It feels like an abyss of years opening up in her, of quiet yearning from afar, watching but never making a move. 

Persephone moves away from him, walking to another corner of the garden. “These ones need to die.”

He plucks one flower free, twirling it between his fingers. The smell reminds Qestra of the Empress’ sitting room in Garlemald, and it makes her gut twist. “They are beautiful. Are you sure you wish them unmade?”

“It is their time.”

“Very well. As you wish.” The flowers are alive — she sees them now, how they pulsate with life and aether and magick in a way that she has only dreamed of, only theorised. In her wildest dreams at night, Qestra would conjure up flowers and put more than the safe amount of her own aether, her own blood and sweat into them. The difference is, Persephone has done the impossible. 

Were her dreams Persephone’s memories then already? Has her entire life been lived in the shadow of this woman? It is a dizzying prospect.

Emet-Selch’s form changes, his vision darkening. He is pulling on power so strange and unknowable that Qestra’s mind reels, but it feels… Familiar. Like falling backwards while dreaming, like blood on her hands, like the soft embrace of death. 

He begins to pluck at the threads of Persephone’s creation, undoing one by one, marvelling at her craft. The exquisite weave of aether, surrendering to the decay and withering. It finally crumbles to dust and scatters on the soft breeze. 

“Fascinating,” Persephone whispers, looking at his hands as he releases the might of the Underworld, resuming his normal form. He can tell that the cogs in her brain are working from the way she gnaws her lower lip. 

“Was there anything else you wanted from me?”

“Hmm. Yes. Yes, actually.” She turns her cool gaze to meet his, her hand reaching up to touch his cheekbone, tracing down to his lips. “I have thought about this too long. Foolish of me, really. I should just act.” She presses her lips to him, and it catches him off-guard, but he cannot deny how much he has ached for this moment to come to pass. She cups his face, deepening the kiss, and he leans into her touch, into the palm of her hand. He tangles his fingers in her long black hair and tugs her closer.

His thoughts get wrapped up in Qestra’s memories of Persephone’s voice, and she cannot tell them apart, the needs, the wants — consume me, destroy me, re-make me, come back to me — but she burns. She burns for them, with them.

When Persephone breaks away, her lips leaving his, he holds on to her, digging his fingertips into her soft robes. He is so charmed by how she did this, he is charmed by her, and he needs more. “Please,” he breathes, voice low and pleading, “again.”

And then she sees the moment again — no, it is not the same one, but a similar one. Recreated in a different garden, with a different person. And all she feels is a strange nostalgic sadness throughout them all. Over and over, layers of it echoing through the ages. How many times has he tried to recapture the magic of that moment and failed? The past long gone, but he cannot forget it, cannot let it be.

The echo subsides, and she drifts alone, hazy and treading the fine line between waking and dreaming. What she has seen… He felt so much love for Persephone. Endless amounts. And even in that memory he gave Qestra, he lost her. That feeling of loss, clinging to the moments that came after, over and over. 

But what happened between that moment and the one where she set the garden on fire? What did he do that angered her so? And why is Persephone with Qestra now?

She wants to laugh, relieved and horrified all at once. She always wondered what possessed her, not just that time in Garlemald but before, what even drove her to leave the forest, these strange bursts of almost self-destructive instinct. But there is something in her that isn't her. Someone.

Logically, it should be frightening. Another’s soul, clinging to her, from another time and place. A time where Emet-Selch had been loving and tender, and the smile had reached his eyes. A place where his back was straight and upright. 

But… It is a marvellous thing, and strange, and raises so many questions. To transcend time and space. To carry memories not yours. Mostly, she wishes she could talk with Persephone directly instead of deciphering these fractured memories alone. 

* * *

The cruelest thing about living for aeons, that which repeats the most, are faces. The curve of a lip. The arch of a brow. They repeat, and repeat, shards of ones Emet-Selch knew, scattered dust clinging to spectres who know nothing. It hurts to look at her sometimes.

And yet, he looks. He remembers. 

Though she does not know it herself yet, Emet-Selch can sense the shadow of death spreading through Qestra. It makes the light within her all the more bright, all the more eradicating. 

Sure, she talks, she annoys him, she prods for answers to questions she does not wholly comprehend. But she is dying. The wound is deep and not healing, and not only is light leaking into the wound, but a poison too. A heady and potent mix. 

It seems an ignoble ending. Pathetic, even. To have come so far, only to be felled by this.

“How did they even manage to catch you,” he asks, watching as she struggles to prop herself up. There is a feverish glassiness to her eyes. He has been sitting with her all day, watching and waiting.

“Persephone decided she wanted a word at a very inopportune moment.” Qestra tilts her head. Even in the midst of this haze of sedation and pain, there is a precise clarity in her. Even now, she considers what to tell and what to conceal. “She said that you took her into the darkness. That you would take me there too. She showed me the sky on fire. And how much she loved you, despite the things you did to her.”

It is an easy thing, to simply watch and wait. To not interfere. It would be the easy thing to do here, as well. 

The thing is, he is not a man who aims for simple. And in this matter, he is a selfish man.

He scoots his chair closer to her, hand hoovering over the wound. “Allow me.” 

“What are you going to do?”

His gloved hand touches her bare skin, brow furrowed in concentration. “Ah. Yes. There.” A cool chill emanates from his fingertips in waves, not merely removing the bone splinters and cleansing the poison, but re-making the broken bone new. Just a pinprick of darkness in her, to counter the overwhelming light. It will not be enough to balance on its own, but it is a small gift. Perhaps she will understand the value of it, in time. 

She breathes in deep, cautiously moving her leg. “How? Just like that?”

“This is but a fraction of what I can do. Of what all of my kin can do.”

“Why? Don’t think me ungrateful, but I don’t understand why.” 

“Think of it as a show of my kindness.”

“I do not think that is all of it.”

“You are clever. You will figure it out eventually.”

She falls quiet, testing her leg again. Daring to be brave, she swings her legs over the side and takes a careful step, then another. 

“I see you are up.” Thancred enters, followed by Urianger and Minfilia. They all look exhausted, but the sight of Qestra on her legs seems to lift their spirits somewhat. 

Qestra beams at them. “Emet-Selch healed my leg. Look. It’s completely fine!” She stands up on her tip-toes and spins around. Then she pauses, actually taking in their expressions. “What happened? Where is Y’shtola?” 

Thancred and Urianger look stricken, and Minfilia turns away, her shoulders shaking. 

“Y’shtola…”

He listens to them describe what happened in the ruins, their voices faltering, but then a piece of information snags on him. Yes, the lifestream. He thought he sensed a ripple earlier, but now he is certain.

Oh, how she will owe him after this. He can hardly wait to see what she offers up in return.


	6. The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: The Moon. _A reflection of the inner is emerging. The Moon represents the shadow of the self, the unconscious mind, weaknesses pushed down. The shadow within is rising to the surface, and are beginning to affect you. The time and the wild will soon come into conflict._

The first time they lost Y’shtola to the lifestream it felt like moving mountains to get her back — travelling far and wide, scouring for traces, praying to the elementals, begging for favour and even tracking down Y’shtola’s half-sister. Even then they did not know if it would work until she fell onto the ground, exhausted and changed by her time in it. 

And now, here, Emet-Selch has brought her back with a snap of his fingers. Just like that. As if it hardly was a thing. 

Qestra hangs back behind the rest of them, watching from the sidelines how they react to Emet-Selch’s miraculous action. She finds it most fascinating, their struggle with how he did this one impossible thing for them, plucking Y’shtola out of the lifestream as if he was picking a ripe fruit from a low-hanging branch. As if it was nothing. 

Thancred is torn between joy at seeing Y’shtola again and annoyance that no one else could do this but Emet-Selch. Mostly annoyance. Y’shtola is uncharacteristically giddy, as if escaping death’s clutches again still has adrenaline pumping through her — a feeling Qestra is intimately familiar with. Minfilia is harder to read, not because she hides her emotions well but because she hardly seems to allow herself them. She sticks to Thancred’s side, hands folded neatly in front of her, unsure of where her place is in their group dynamics. 

To be honest, Qestra has wondered the same as of late. They have been here on the First without her for years, splitting apart to pursue different causes. The dynamics have changed in ways she cannot entirely chart, while she has remained the same. To them, she was closer to a memory when she came here. It feels peculiar. As if she was stuck in time while everything else pushed on ahead without her.

She eyes Urianger, and he catches her watching. He has been a particularly strange mix between observant and withholding with her. Sometimes she will turn and see him looking at her as if he is trying to measure her and she is not up to size. As if he is waiting for her to arrive at some mysterious conclusion, to reveal an answer he already knows.

She loves them, in their own ways. But it is like getting to know them all over again, while they already know her. And constantly, she butts up against how their memories have transformed who she really is, as if they remember her too fondly, too sweetly. They have told stories about her to others, stories she has to match or be found wanting. 

It is almost the same with Emet-Selch. With Emet-Selch, she stands in constant shadow underneath Persephone, trying to figure out which one of them he sees first when speaking to her. Which one of them he wants. She does not feel wholly herself in either spot.

The thing is, she likes being with Emet-Selch more. And it bugs her. It goes against what she should be feeling. It goes against all common sense and sensibility, but there is something about being just the two of them that feels unlike anything she has ever felt. Dangerous, yes, but no more dangerous than the thrill of the hunt.

The others head back to Fanow, but she lingers behind with Emet-Selch. He notices, of course, and that insufferable smug smile graces his face.

“A word of thanks, perhaps?”

“Thank you, most esteemed Emet-Selch,” she says, unable to keep her tone from veering into slight jest.

“I see Persephone is leaving her mark on you.” He is annoyed, but amused. “But that is not a sincere thanks, now is it. One would almost feel insulted by your callousness in this.”

She rolls her eyes, but does her best. “Thank you. I mean it.”

He puts a hand over his heart. “Ah, but how can I trust the truth behind your words?”

“You want me to do something for you.”

“One act of kindness for another. Is that not a fair exchange?”

“What do you want? Name your price.” As soon as she utters it, she feels a slight twinge of fear. What if he asks her to do something she cannot?

He moves closer, touching her chin with a finger, his smug smile both endearing and annoying. “All I would ask for is a kiss.”

She stares at him, disbelieving. “A kiss?”

“Yes, you know how to do it, don’t you?”

“I’m almost a hundred years old.” 

“There is no shame in being an untouched virgin that long, though I am sure you have made plenty hearts weep in that time, my dear.”

She hides her face in her hands, shaking her head. “What I mean is, I am not a novice.” 

“Good.”

“Why a kiss?”

He shrugs. “Why not? A kiss is a kiss. It hardly matters. A small token of gratitude. Nothing more.”

She does not know how to parse his actions. Is he… Flirting? Does he want to humiliate her by having her say no so he can ask for something else, something bigger? Then again, just a kiss — it is, as he says, a thing that hardly matters. That should hardly matter.

Yet. _Yet._

“I’m not going to discuss this now.” She starts to leave but halts, backtracks to him. “I didn’t say no. But not now.” 

His laugh follows her back to the village, along with a strange sensation in her chest. 

* * *

When Qestra delivers the killing blow to the Lightwarden hiding in the depths of the Qitana Ravel, she feels the light surging up from it and into her. It suffuses her being, and for a moment she feels nothing. Just a great vastness of nothing opening up in her: no emotions, no concerns, no fears. Only light. 

And then, she sees an image she has yearned to stand face to face with. Someone who looks almost like her, but is not her. Not really. 

“There you are,” Qestra says softly, as if trying to speak to a frightened animal. 

_Your time is running out._

“It always is.”

_Yes. Here I am. Bound to you in ways you do not understand._

“Then explain. I am tired of not knowing. Please. Why me? Why you? Why _him_?”

There is nothing from Persephone. As Qestra steps closer, she thinks briefly that it is like watching a shimmering mirror, a distant mirage.

_All this light is destroying what protections I have built for you._

“Please tell me about Emet-Selch.”

_You should worry more about yourself than him._

“I’m fine.”

Persephone shakes her head, turning away from Qestra. _We are not fine._

And then the night rushes in, the light receding. While the others look up at the stars, Qestra bites the inside of her cheek, trying not to stumble. She feels dizzy, faint, but she will not show it and cause them further concern. Breathing in deep, she feels more and more stable. 

They begin weaving their way back through the old ruins and caves, their voices falling to low hushes. It feels almost disrespectful to talk too loudly in such an ancient place. 

All the while, Qestra walks in the back, turning over the moment in her head. What did Persephone mean — _we are not fine_? Is she feeling what Qestra is going through? Is there a mutual exchange of sensations? And if such things pass between them, then who is to say that emotions are exempt from it too?

Are her emotions towards Emet-Selch even her own, then, or just the echo of Persephone’s? Is she going to contribute to the endless line of moments he recreates in the image of what Persephone did to him the first time they kissed each other? 

Too many questions. Too many details to turn over, to wonder over. 

She pushes it away. Not now. There will be time later. Must be time later. 

She looks up, realising she has fallen behind. The others have stopped up ahead, discussing something they see on the cave wall. As she catches up, a familiar voice rings out in the cave.

“I see you are taking your sweet time in here,” Emet-Selch says, looking annoyed at having come this far for them. 

Thancred’s face sours in disgust. “Come to lead us to safety, have you?”

Emet-Selch shrugs. “I was bored. But how is she?” He looks past all the others to eye Qestra up and down, his gaze… Disarming. As if he is looking past even her face. She wonders if he wants her to come up and kiss him now, in front of everyone. It would be adequately humiliating, if his cruelty bent that way. “Hmm. Fighting fit, I see. Keep up the good work.” The compliment itself feels even stranger to deal with than for her to fulfil his request.

Y’shtola flicks her ears. “You're plotting something.”

“Every hour of every day. But never you mind about that. As I have told you a thousand times before: I like to watch. Nothing more.”

Urianger turns to her very subtly and raises an eyebrow. She shakes her head. It does not go unnoticed by Emet-Selch, but he has the decency to not remark upon it. 

“Well! I would quit this place, and I suggest you do the same. There is yet work to be done.” He pauses, looking up at the wall paintings of the cave. His entire expression changes, his voice softening. “Ah… Now there is a sight to bring a tear to the eye.”

"You recognise these scenes?” Minfilia asks timidly. 

He takes a step back to take in the full scale of the paintings, his eyes wandering between the images. “That I do. Indeed, there was a time when anyone and everyone would. Until one calamitous day when the world was divided across ten and three reflections, sundering the land and all who dwelled upon it.” He turns to look at Qestra, their eyes meeting. “And the worst part? No one could remember it. Not really. Just fragments and fleeting memories of an achingly familiar world…”

_You know it’s name, in your heart. All you have to do is ask._

She waits, holding her breath, but nothing more from Persephone. 

Emet-Selch looks away from her. She is not sure if he is disappointed or not. “A vision shared of a paradise lost, preserved only in song and scripture and paint. Once upon a time, everyone knew it. Everyone aspired to it. Yet here we find ourselves again. To look, learn, and remember…”

“Then share with us the stories you know so well. We are listening.” Y’shtola has an edge to her voice, not that easily taken in by his speech. Still, Qestra sees how she leans forward just a little, how curious she is, how much she wants to know. Qestra sees it because she feels the same.

Emet-Selch smiles to himself, and points out one wall painting, of a great city with spires twisting upwards, stars dotting a black sky above. “Before the great sundering, there was one world. A world that knew naught but peace and prosperity. Until it was faced with a crisis. Unprecedented, terrifying. Civilisation found itself perched upon a precipice, staring into oblivion.”

The next painting he points to is the same city, but the sky is now on fire. The image stirs a memory deep down in her, the images she has seen again and again. A sky on fire. She just does not know if she is brave enough to connect those moments to this. To some unsundered paradise long gone. 

Emet-Selch is not looking at them, moving on to the next painting in the series depicting a dark figure, surrounded by purple and black. “But through prayer and sacrifice, the will of the star was made manifest. Zodiark was His name, and by His grace was the calamity averted.”

His words ripple through the Scions. Her mind reels with the implications, the puzzle pieces sliding into place in her mind and still not fitting — because she does not want them to fit. If he speaks the truth, then it is terrifying. 

It is easier not to believe. To call him a liar. To call it a tale. 

But even then, she knows that there is something all too true to his side of the story. 

“Zodiark was a saviour mighty and magnificent, deserving of reverence and gratitude, or so one would have thought. Yet some thought otherwise. From the fears of these naysayers would rise Hydaelyn─She who was to serve as His shackles. To bind Him and hold Him in check.” He points out another set of paintings, the dark figure and the light one positioned against each other: similar in shape. Different names. Different aspects. Different purposes. “And so they fought, and they fought, and they fought. And in the end… Hydaelyn was victorious. With all Her strength She smote Him ─ dealing a blow so devastating that it split the very fabric of reality. And thus was Zodiark banished and His being divided.”

Emet-Selch lowers his hand, turning back to face them. 

“That concludes today's lesson on long-forgotten history. Though I imagine your Mother would offer a rather contradictory account. As is Her wont.”

“I’m sorry,” Thancred begins, the first to shake himself out of the shock of the revelations. “I can only assume I misheard, but it sounded an awful lot like you were implying both Zodiark and Hydaelyn are not gods, but…”

“What? Not gods of the First? Is that what you thought these paintings depicted? Or...? Oh…” He is toying with them, Qestra realises. It is the truth, or his truth, but he is delivering it in a way that will cut at them. Cruel, but efficient. “They are gods after a fashion, yes, but no different from the kind with which you are so intimately acquainted. Formed of faith and prayer, of conviction and devotion. The eldest and most powerful of primals.”

“You have spun quite a tale. Yet you have not explained the role of the Ascians in all of this. How is it you are privy to ancient secrets lost to time?”

He laughs. “Finally, finally, you ask the right question! And shrewd questions warrant honest answers. We Ascians know because it is our history. Our story. It was we who summoned Zodiark ─ we natives of that sundered paradise. Now do you see why we yearn for the Great Rejoining? For our world, for our people, for all creation to be made whole again.” Once again, he meets Qestra’s gaze, holding it for a long moment. “Wouldn't you wish for the same?” 

She takes three steps towards him, but he snaps his fingers and they are all teleported out of the ruins, and he is gone elsewhere. His name lingers on her tongue, and in her mind a thousand questions scream for answers. 

* * *

Days later back at the Crystarium, Qestra and Urianger sit in his suite, each with a divination card spread in front of them trying to read the other. She wants to keep her skills sharp, though reading Urianger is always a headache — every card pointing towards secrets and concealments, much to her frustration. 

“How doth your concern with Emet-Selch fare?”

“Slowly,” she says. 

She does not need to tell him about the intense dreams of his hands on her skin she has been having lately, of the promised kiss haunting her thoughts while Emet-Selch has been gone for days. That is not relevant. Not to Urianger, at least.

“He seems attached to you.”

“I remind him of someone he once knew. Nothing more.”

“Still, the shadow of that person hangs over you, muddling your interactions.” He holds up a card: Five of Cups. “This: he sees in you what he has lost.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she mutters. “Perhaps how to turn that to my favour.”

“That is not my missive. But, if one were to suggest a course of action, there lieth two paths ahead: either to surrender to his memories and indulge them.” Urianger holds up the Moon card between his fingers. The night sky is depicted on it, lost and only remembered by a few now, dreamt of by more — but still a powerful symbol. One she is returning to the lands. “To surrender to that which hideth within: ’tis always dangerous, but potential.”

“I fear I risk losing myself if I do.”

He puts down the cards and shuffles them together back into the deck. “Then the other path is to be yourself, and to never relent.”

The line is not as clear-cut between the two of them as she wishes. 

“I see you two are busy probing the fates,” Y’shtola says as she enters without knocking, joining them at the table. “Any grand revelations, any potent prophecies?”

“Thou wouldst be the first to know,” Urianger says with a bow of his head.

“I never am, not with you.” She turns to Qestra. “But I came here to speak with you. Do you feel any different?”

“No,” Qestra lies. She feels many things out of the ordinary, and even more unsure about all of them. 

Y’shtola pauses, clearly not believing her but letting it pass. “Then I will speak plainly. The light is changing you. You may not see it, or feel it yet, but it is altering you down to your very aether. It was never for mortals to carry so much of it within them.” 

“I’m fine.”

“You are not. But there is nothing I can do to change your course now. Just to make you aware of the price you are paying.” 

Qestra opens her mouth to protest, but interruptions are plentiful today. Before she has the chance to push back against Y’shtola, an orange swirl flies through the room. Feo Ul appears right in front of her face, loud and affectionate as they tug at Qestra’s braid. 

“There you are, my beautiful sapling,” Feo Ul coos. “Oh, look at you, positively radiating with all that light!”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Qestra asks, gingerly trying to get Feo Ul to stop tugging at her hair so hard it hurts. 

Feo Ul spins around, eager to show off in front of them all. “The faefolk of Il Mheg are throwing a ball, a grand one, spectacular! You are all invited, you who gave us back the night. It is vital that you come. Bring the twins!” The pixie turns back to Qestra, touching the tip of her nose. “And you, my sapling, are to be my guest of honour.”

“Am I now?”

“Yes yes yes! You must be dressed beautifully, of course. To do anything else would reflect poorly on us, and break our very, very aching heart. You always forget to call upon me when you need me. It hurts us so. It is only a fair price we ask.”

Feo Ul starts listing all the things her outfit must be, each grander than the previous. Dripping with pearls and made out of blossoms, ephemeral as the rainbow and eternal as the sky, magnificent as the wind and resplendent as the night. All the while, Urianger and Y’shtola look on in amusement at Qestra’s growing horror of the expectations she has to live up to. 

It takes her a fair hour before she can placate Feo Ul with enough promises that yes, she will come, and yes the twins will wear matching outfits, before the pixie leaves them to seek out all other invited guests. By that time Urianger and Y’shtola are engaged in an esoteric discussion about aether dilution, and Qestra desires silence. She slips out and down the corridor, but she is still within earshot when she hears a change in Y’shtola’s tone.

“What is going on between her and the Ascian?” Y’shtola asks.

“I am a gentleman who would never tell.”

“Come now, Urianger. His voice alone changes when he addresses her. There are subtle traces of his aether in her.” 

Urianger keeps his silence, and the abrupt sound of a chair scraping makes it clear that Y’shtola has had enough. 

Qestra briefly considers leaving, or trying to hide, but no. She crosses her arms and waits for Y’shtola to notice her presence. 

“Ah. There you are.”

“His aether in me. What does that mean?”

“’Tis quite rude to eavesdrop, but I expected you would. What are you doing with him?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“I ask because I care, not because I am here to admonish you. Thancred already thinks the Ascian is intent upon seducing you.”

“And what do you think?”

“I see that you are seducing _him_.” 

Qestra laughs. “I am not!”

Y’shtola raises an eyebrow, but she smiles. “You can lie to Thancred all you want, but one day you will have to reckon with all of them knowing. Will you be able to live with your actions then, I wonder?” 

Qestra wants to say a great many things, but none of them come to her. There is some truth in what Y’shtola says, but seduction? That is a dangerous game. 

And Qestra is foolish enough to love the thrill of danger. 

* * *

Qestra dreams. She knows it is a dream, has always been able to separate dreams from reality since she took a course on oneiromancy at Sharlayan — the final exam of which was an excruciating lucid dream one had to shape to a specific image: your death, fast approaching. And then to be able to dream of surviving. 

She passed then, barely. But she never lucid dreamed again after. 

It is yet another dream in a string of dreams that all start the same: that she stands in front of Emet-Selch, his body shrouded in shadows. From that point on, they all veer in different directions. 

The first one she had the shadows became a sword in his hand, and the sword pushed through her chest, cracking her ribs, piercing her heart. The shadows embraced her, pulling her into his embrace. The tenderness of it haunted her for days afterwards. 

She has dreamt of her holding a blade formed out of pure light, dragging the sharp side of it against his throat. How he clings to her as she does it, how he smiles as he grows heavier in her arms. 

This dream is different.

Emet-Selch is still shrouded in shadows, like all other times.

But he kneels in front of her, bowing his head. She touches the crown of his head, the hair silky soft in her hands, and she grabs a fistful of it and pulls hard enough to elicit a hiss of pain. His eyes when forced to look up at her flash of frustration, pain and pleasure. 

He wants this. He wants to be at her mercy — a being of untold power, containing history and magic and knowledge she can only grasp at in her wildest dreams — wants to submit to her. 

It is a heady rush of power.

To soothe the ache she has inflicted upon him she touches his cheek softly with the back of her hand and he leans into it, his lips parting softly, a shivering moan of pure need escaping his lips. 

He is so vulnerable like this. She holds only a fraction of the power he contains, and yet he kneels for her. 

He kisses her knee in the dream and the moan she lets out wakes her up. A thin film of sweat covers her chest and she rolls over in bed and reaches for the folded towel she keeps on the nightstand, coughing wet and hot into it. 

Light droplets splatter across the fabric and she studies them for a brief moment before throwing it into the washbasin. It has been the same each night. Just a few drops, and she still feels like herself, every inch of her skin still the same colour, still soft and normal. It is all fine. It is nothing to worry about, she repeats it over and over like a mantra, soaking the towel until the droplets dissipate in the water. Nothing to fear. 

The room is stifling hot. She slips on a dress and goes out in the night to catch her breath. The Crystarium sleeps, and she opts to head to the upper walkways. Barely a few steps out, she sees Emet-Selch standing there. Almost like he is waiting for her.

She shivers, though the air is barely chilly at all, and walks up to him. 

“Have you come to collect?” she asks, foregoing all greetings. It is like a fever, this debt hanging over her mind, a kiss is just a kiss so why does it bother her so? Why is her mind such a mess over this? 

Because she does want him, in ways she can barely dare name. 

“I am a patient man,” he says, leaning back against the railing casually. “I live forever. You, however…”

“Then I would just get it over with.”

“Very well.” 

She licks her lips and kisses him quick on the mouth, their lips barely brushing.

“Disappointing.” He grabs her chin and eyes her lips for a moment, then meets her eyes. That ravenous hunger is there again, the one that leaves her shuddering. “You can do better.”

Annoyed, she bares her teeth. He wants better? Fine. 

Her hand moves up to his cheek, stopping an ilm away from his skin — so warm she can feel it without even touching. “May I?” 

“You may.”

She gently places her hand on his cheek, her fingers tracing his cheekbone down to his upper lip. She follows the outline of his lips, and the tip of his tongue darts out to touch her thumb. The gesture makes her inhale sharply, and she holds his gaze steady as she slides the digit a bit into his mouth, pressing down on his tongue. Her heart is in her throat, the beat so loud she can scarcely hear anything else, feel anything but his mouth and the graze of teeth against her skin. 

Urianger spoke of two ways it could go, of her own conquest or submission of the ghost that haunts her — but she has thought of a potential third way. _His_ submission. Him on his knees in front of her. 

Before he can say anything, she has grabbed a fistful of his hair and holds hard. He hisses the same way as he did in the dream, his eyes flashing with the same mix of emotions as in the dream. Was it a dream, or a memory from Persephone? Qestra does not care about that, not now.

She leans close to his exposed throat, still holding his hair in a tight grip. She kisses the place where in another life she stabbed his neck through, but her kiss is light and soft. She plants a second there, using just a ghost of teeth on the skin. Tracing the lines of his neck, her lips follow it up to his jaw, biting slightly harder on the sharp edge there. When she pulls back, his skin has red teethmarks, and his eyes are half-lidded. His hands are at her hips, fingertips digging into her dress.

“Better?” she asks, but her voice cannot quite bring itself to be mocking, instead it is thick with need.

“Yes,” he breathes, his voice almost quivering.

She cups his face with her other hand and kisses him, but this time she does not let go after a mere second. Deepening the kiss she parts her lips right as he does, their tongues meeting. He sighs softly into her mouth and it makes her stomach flutter. To have the power to bring forth that noise from him. 

She lets go of his hair and his hands immediately move up to her face, delicately holding on to her. It is so much, so intoxicating, and underneath all of that — so _familiar_ it terrifies and thrills her in equal doses. 

She strokes his cheek with her fingers, trailing them towards his ear. When she touches the white earring there, a small jolt travels through her, and she breaks the kiss. She does not move away from him though, staying just as close as before, her hands dropping to rest on his chest. 

He exhales, content. “There. Now that wasn't so hard, was it? I daresay even you enjoyed it.”

“Well. The debt is repaid.” 

“So it is.” He catches a loose lock of her hair, wrapping it around his fingers. 

“But you want more.” It is a shot in the dark, a wild stab at the truth. It hits its target. 

“Yes. And so do you.”

“Yes.” She brings her lips close to his but stops when they are almost touching. “But not tonight.” She smiles, pulling back and making to leave him when he catches her by the wrist.

“I do so enjoy our little games,” he says, voice deep and husky, as he brings her hand up this mouth and kisses the back of her hand. The way he looks at her sends shivers down her spine. Her gamble has paid off. 

He will become a man possessed, and she… She _will_ possess him. 


	7. The Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7: The Tower. _Downfall as a result of one's pursuit of egotistical ambition. The sudden change will shake your foundations, but the aftermath will reveal the truth._

Qestra arrives to Lyhe Ghiah as the sun begins setting over the Longmirror Lake, the entirety of Il Mheg lit up in a spectacle of orange and red colours. The amaro that have come to fetch them sweep down over the front courtyard, and looking back towards the Crystarium there are small black dots across the sky, signalling the coming of so many more.

The Scions land behind her, sans Y’shtola who bowed out of joining them for this evening, though she lamented missing the chance at experiencing Urianger _make a fool of himself during dances again_ , as she so succinctly put it. Thancred was determined to bow out as well, but when Minfilia asked to go he acquiesced, albeit not happily. 

The only one who actually seems eager about the entire thing is Urianger, who dismounts and glances up at the castle expectantly. When the rest arrive, he spreads his arm wide, speaking a greeting in fae. “’Twould be prudent of me to give a lesson in fae hospitality,” he says. “Lest we lose one of our own by the morrow. By far the most important: eat and drink nothing that they offer, lest they claim you as their own.” 

“What happens if they claim you?” Minfilia asks.

“Depends on the mood they’re in,” Alisaie says. She fought back tooth and nail on having to dress up similarly to her brother, saying she was not a toy doll, but relented enough to at least wear differently coloured suits in matching cuts. Though where she has her top shirts unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, Alphinaud is prim and proper, even with a silk cravat around his neck. 

Alphinaud shakes his head. “Really, don’t take anything they try to give you.”

Minfilia nods gravely, taking in their words with excessive gravity. 

Judging by the small gatherings by the door, they are not the first to arrive, and a swirl of orange-red zips between the clustered guests before transforming into the king of pixies themselves. Feo Ul looks most displeased.

“Late! Late late late, always late!” Feo Ul eyes Qestra and her dress critically, sighing. “This will not do. You think we can have you represent the splendour of Il Mheg looking like this?” With a wave of their hand they add some flourishes — glass shoes that pinch her heels, embroideries swirling across the dress with golden threads, delicate pearls dripping from her shoulders and to top it all off, a flower crown dripping dew onto her face.

She does not like it overly much, but knows better than to insult a pixie. “Satisfied?”

Feo Ul bares their teeth in a pleased grin. “Come. It is time for you to begin your duty for tonight.” 

Her companions wave her off as Feo Ul tugs her inside the castle. With each step she takes, she feels the glass shoes digging into her feet, almost feeling like they are slicing through her flesh. She tries to kick them off discreetly but they refuse to budge, moulded to fit snugly. 

“What does the guest of honour position involve, exactly?”

“You are to greet all our guests. All of them. Once it is done, you may enjoy the ball yourself.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Feo Ul’s wicked grin assures her that it will be far more taxing than it sounds. 

Qestra is assigned to stand next to the king’s throne. Feo Ul has spared nothing for their grand ball, least of all the guest list. A line already snakes its way up to them, and each time a new guest arrives, she knows the name as her mouth opens, but if she is not careful a rude comment will slip out as well and trip her up. No doubt a spell that Feo Ul, in their eternally mischievous mood, has cast upon her. 

She bows to pixies, to amaro, the beasts and creatures she knows not what they are. The kingdom of Il Mheg spares no fancy, and as soon as she has uttered a name she has forgotten it, already thinking of the one next in line. It feels passing strange to greet a guest from the Crystarium or Lakeland in-between all of the Il Mheg ones: they belong here as little as she does, and their wide eyes are filled with awe. The enchantment of the castle and the night are strong. Very strong.

“Feo Ul,” she says between guests. “I would ask that all of the mortals here tonight are left under my protection.”

“You would take these fun playthings from our subjects?”

“I would be very cross with you if they were taken from me. And I am sure the Crystal Exarch would be as well.”

“Fine, fine fine fine. They will all be returned safe come sunrise. Not a second before.”

It is as good a deal as one can wrench from the pixies, she wagers. 

The burden of the task ahead of her weighs her down. She must have greeted a hundred guests by the time she gets to the Crystal Exarch with Lyna at his side, both of them in their usual clothing. 

“We will not stay long,” the Exarch says as Qestra shakes their hands, her feet bleeding in the glass shoes. “But I will of course honour my friendship with Feo Ul and hope we can continue working with Il Mheg.” 

“You know how they feel when we speak of politics,” Qestra says gently. 

“Of course.” He lowers his voice. “I am glad to see you in good health tonight.” The words conceal a small spell, the soft touch of healing magic wrapping around her sore body and giving her a welcome breeze of relief. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, struggling to hide her smile.

“I know not what you mean.” The Exarch smiles, moving along to make room for Lyna.

“Lovely to see you again, Lyna.”

“This is highly extravagant,” Lyna mutters, looking around herself on high alert. “Far too open.”

“Eulmore were repelled from here not long ago,” Qestra reminds her. “They will not try their luck again.”

“You are more hopeful in such matters than I am. I admit, this is not my kind of thing, but he asked for an escort to come tonight. I could not decline.” 

“You two are most welcome. Please, enjoy your night here.”

“You ask far too much of a humble soldier.” And then she too moves along, replaced with new arrivals. 

Qestra’s throat grows sore, her hands raw. It is not entirely just a position of honour, but a little bit of a punishment. Or endurance test. Prideful as she is, she is determined to pass. 

As the night wears on, she steals moments here and there between guests to survey the great hall. She spots Thancred easily, standing to the side with Alisaie. Time seems to flow so fast, and then barely not at all — in one moment Alisaie and Thancred are arm-wrestling, surrounded by pixies cheering for their favoured twin. The next the two Scions are discussing something, heads leaned close, and then they laugh.

She wishes she could be with them, partaking of their jokes. Even when she is there, though, surrounded by them, she feels out of place. It is easier to watch them from afar, and care for them so. 

Even if it means going behind their backs.

On the far side of the hall, she thinks she spots a familiar figure: the dark robe lined with white and red, the heavy shoulders. Then another guest steps into her line of sight, and she speaks the greetings Feo Ul wants her to. When she looks back he is gone.

Urianger is on the dance floor, leading Minfilia in a careful dance. Qestra sees Minfilia step on his toes and her jump of terror, but Urianger only smiles and nudges her to keep going.

Behind them, she notices him again, and this time she is sure of it. It is Emet-Selch. He did come. 

She waits for another guest to interrupt her, but instead it is Feo Ul who places a hand on her shoulder.

“You have done well tonight, sapling.”

“Was that all of them?” 

“There is one more.”

Qestra smiles. “Honoured Emet-Selch, you are the last to arrive, and the one who frees me from my duty tonight.” She bows her head, aching for a drink and to kick off these painful shoes.

“You have been hard at work, I see,” he says. 

“I did not think you would come.”

He smirks. “You asked me to. Who am I to deny you?” 

“Go, sapling. You have paid your tithe.” Feo Ul bends down and kisses Qestra’s forehead, and the aches of the night are washed away. The rawness of her throat is soothed, and the sharp glass shoes melt into water and sink into the grass beneath their feet. She has been freed.

“A dance?” Emet-Selch asks, holding out his hand as an offer. 

“No. But I need fresh air. Come.” She takes his hand and drags him along after her, her bare feet moving fast across the grassy floor. She leads him out towards the gardens, away from the bustling hall, avoiding looking at any of the Scions. 

In the cool of the night, she can breathe easier. They are alone, and the din of the castle just a background noise.

“There are so many eyes on you tonight. All following you.”

“I am used to being watched.” Though she can’t deny that sometimes she yearns to just disappear into the shadows like he can, to fade from everyone’s consciousness for just a brief moment. “Did you endure many nights like this as emperor?”

“Thousands. Though as emperor, you are given certain leeway in how to dictate the rules of it. As long as you please the nobility.”

“Dreadful. I always skipped banquets at Sharlayan. Too stiff, and big crowds. But crowds are excellent to disappear into.”

“You know I could snap my fingers and take you anywhere you desire on this shard.”

“I prefer to have control of where I go.”

“You do not trust me.”

“No. Not fully. Not yet.” Maybe not ever.

He stands closer to her, looking more amused than affronted. “Yet you drag me out here, into a secluded private spot. One could think you want to keep me a dirty little secret.”

She flicks a finger against his nose. “Is that not what we are?” 

“For now.”

The thing about talking to Emet-Selch is that sometimes, the things he says… It feels like opening gates to places she does not dare enter. Not just yet. He has done it again, and she does not want to entertain that line of thinking, quick to change the subject to a question that has been nagging at the back of her mind when she cannot sleep. “What would you have done, had you found me after the—“

“Attempted assassination?” He catches on fast.

“Momentary lapse of judgement.”

“I would have tried to make you come back.”

“To Garlemald?” She laughs. “And then what, I would live as your concubine in a cellar, used for your pleasures when the whim struck, hidden from your wife?”

“I would have given you a garden.” He shrugs, toying with the pearl decoration on her shoulder. “Would that be so terrible a life? Not having to worry about wars, about ancient primals or Ascians. Not having to worry about anything but pleasure.”

“I am not a pet to be kept.” Her eyes flash at him. “Though perhaps you would enjoy it? Surrendering, for a lifetime, to not having to constantly battle with headstrong warriors of Light and imperial machinations? To just be used for pleasure and indulgence?”

He smiles. “A tempting thought. But the Rejoining does not wait for me, and my kin would not let me rest for that long.”

“How cruel of them.”

“The pity in your voice is deafening.”

She arches an eyebrow, moving past him and down a staircase to the lower part of the garden jutting out over the lake below. Weaving through the overgrown garden, she finds a small cluster of fruit trees and plucks a ripe peach from a branch. She takes a bite from it, savouring the delicious sweetness, and then plucks another.

Holding it out in front of him, she withdraws her hand as he almost touches it. “You know the custom of this kingdom, right? You eat from what I offer you, and I can claim you.”

He takes her wrist and brings the fruit to his mouth, taking a bite from the peach without breaking eye contact. Juice trickles over her fingers, and after he swallows the bite he plucks the fruit from her hand. His tongue darts out and catches a drop still making its way down to her wrist, lapping it up. 

She suppresses a shiver at the touch. At how he just ate the fruit from her hand without hesitation. At least he has a sense of humour. 

“Eager now, are we?” Her voice is coming out huskier than she would like, and he must have noticed.

“You offered. I am not one to refuse such a generous gift.”

“So. Now that you are mine…” She leans close, close enough that her breath ghosts his lips and he inhales sharply. At least she has some power over him. “I can ask you about the city you spoke of in the Qitana Ravel.”

“That’s all?” He looks a little disappointed. Good. 

“For now. Was Persephone from there?”

“Yes.” He pauses, weighing his words. “You want to hear more. It is not a memory I speak of lightly, considering how I witnessed its fall.”

“Will you at least tell me the name of it?”

“Amaurot.” He watches her intently, probably hoping for some memory to resurface, some part of Persephone to rise to the surface and greet him. 

She shakes her head. “It means nothing to me.”

The spark of hope goes out from his eyes. “Of course. No, why would it?”

She finishes the peach and throws the pit into a bush, licking her thumb clean. “I would like to hear about Persephone.”

“And what have you done to earn it?”

“You ate from my hand.”

“That I did. Then you must command me.”

Always with the back and forth. She grabs his chin, pulling him towards her for a kiss. She would be lying if she claimed that she had not thought about doing this the entire night. There is still a sweet peach taste on his tongue, and she hooks her fingers behind his ears to keep him with her for just a moment longer. His body, flush against hers, radiates heat, and she feels her heartbeat quicken from the proximity. 

A part of her wishes she was smarter than this. 

When their lips part, his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks for a few seconds before he meets her gaze again. He inhales, moving a step away from her. 

She wishes that was enough to break the spell cast over them. 

“I command you,” she says, voice low and her breath fluttering against his lips. “Tell me.”

He tries to steal another kiss from her, but she holds his chin steady, their faces barely separated by a thumb’s width. The look in his eyes… She almost gives in. Almost releases him. Instead, she pushes his face away, putting more distance between them.

He licks his lips and sighs. “I wish you could remember yourself. Telling your story for you leaves out so many nuances. Of how you felt in all of it.”

“I cannot remember because everything she shows me is tinged with such strong emotions, and there’s gaps. Pieces missing.” 

“The nature of your existence. You will not be happier from hearing this.”

“Tell me anyway.”

He looks annoyed, but gives in to her demands. “You saw it first. The rot of the earth eating at the roots of your plants, causing them to wither and die without need for my touch. You told me you felt it: a decay that moved fast and relentless, chipping away at the world.”

“I’m not Persephone. Don’t address me as if I am.”

He furrows his eyebrows. “If you are to prod at such old memories, indulge an old man.” 

“Fine.”

He crosses his arms across his chest, looking up at the night sky. “You were to be sacrificed. I do not know what folly possessed you, but you were ready to give your life. I stole you away into the Underworld, to keep you safe, hidden away from those who would take your life, lying to both you and them. But I built you a world there. I built you a home, and you filled it with your plants and flowers. You made it breathe, made it come alive in a way I had never managed.”

“She told me she knew about your deceit. Or showed me. It’s complicated, the way she and I intersect.” Qestra herself is not entirely sure where the boundary between her and Persephone runs through her — if there even is one. Things bleed back and forth between them so much. “She felt something was wrong, but played along with you.”

“What we chose to do back then cost us both.” He sighs. “I was selfish. A moment of weakness for which I paid dearly.” He touches her face tenderly, his hand brushing her cheek, but he is not seeing Qestra, not addressing her when he speaks. “I thought I could hide you away, but then you were gone. Like everyone else. Did you leave or were you ripped away too?”

Her head reels. Sacrificed to whom? Why a sacrifice, and why would Persephone wish to do that? All the times he killed her, and this is what made him break all the rules to hide her away? And who was he hiding her from? Every question he answers gives rise to five more. Of course, Persephone remains silent, unwilling to engage when Qestra actually needs her. 

She leans into his touch, smiling wryly. “I can’t answer that for you. I’m not her.”

He removes his hand from her. “No. No, you are not her. You are destined to repeat your mistakes, over and over, each shattered shard of you committing the same sins, stumbling into the same pitfalls. And I get to bear witness to it all. I get to remember while history forgets and repeats, again and again.” 

She walks over to the balustrade, sitting down on top of the railing. “Then why are you here if it wounds you so?”

“I like to watch.”

She shakes her head. “You seem to like suffering.”

He grimaces but comes to stand close to her, her knees pressed against his thighs. “Careful, or you might fall. Would be a shame to watch you tumble down and be crushed on those rocks.”

She hooks her leg behind his knees, pulling him closer. “There. Now we both fall.” 

“Ah, there goes my flawless plan of pushing you over.” He pauses at her unamused expression. “A jest.”

“I know.” She idly plucks at the buttons of his jacket. “I might have been content for a while in a garden with you. But it would just be another prison, like the one you pulled Persephone into. Mortals aren’t the only ones to commit the same mistake over and over.”

“I never found you again, so the point is moot anyway.”

“You have found me now though. What do you intend to do this time? Let me go? Chain me down?” 

“Like I have said: prove yourself worthy for the burden that awaits you.” As if to distract her from where she had veered the topic onto, his gloved fingers touch her wrists. “Besides, your hands would not look good weighed down with chains.” 

“True, I would rather cut off my own hand than submit to your rule.” She says it with a smile, but her voice is cold. It is true. As intrigued as she is by him, by the strange thing connecting the two of them… She is not one to simply surrender. 

“You think me that poor a ruler?” His fingers trail up her bare arms. “A cruel insult.”

“More that I would not be happy for long tied down to one place.”

“You are so much like her.”

“I am not her.”

“No. She is dead and mourned, and you…” He leans close, breathing in of her perfume at sweat at her neck, planting a kiss at the hollow between the clavicles. “You are alive and celebrated.” 

She swallows, frozen in a strange mix of trepidation and excitement over what his next move might be. There are so many things she want from him in this moment, and so many arguments she can think of against it. 

“What are you not telling me?” Her voice is barely a whisper.

“Many things, but it all comes out in due time. Just as I am sure you are keeping some cards close to your heart.” 

“Touché.” 

“Enough of such dire topics for one night, would you not agree?” Emet-Selch shifts on his legs, pressing one of them further up between her thighs. “I do not believe I fully complimented your dress choice for tonight.”

She will allow it. For now. “Mmm. You did not.”

“Then let me…” The back of his hand touches her waist and moves upwards, the knuckles brushing against her nipples taut from the cool night air. She bites her lip to stop from gasping, but the touch stirs a sliver of desire within her. “It is exquisite. Even moreso this up close. The detailing…” His finger dips along the neckline, teasing the skin at the edge. 

“Careful, or I might throw you over the edge myself.”

“Idle threats.”

“You would survive.”

“But I think you want me here.” He rests two fingers in the dip between her breasts. It feels like he is mapping out her body, memorising her. 

“Maybe so.”

He leans forward, putting his lips against her jaw. He gives her a light bite on her neck, mirroring what she did to him the first time they kissed. “Then whatever shall we do…”

“When you spoke of cooperation—”

“This is not quite what I had in mind. Not that I object.” He slides his hands up her thighs, pushing the skirt along. “I could take you right here, if only you asked.”

For some reason, she does not quite believe him. She slides her hands down his back to his ass, cupping it hard through the clothes. “Or I could be the one to bend you over. _I_ could be the one who takes.”

The way his eyes light up tell her everything she needed to know. “Now there’s a thought.” His voice is deeper, thick with desire. It sends a thrill down to her core. 

For a moment, she does consider it. He is an Ascian, he can just create anything they would need. She could just mark him as her own, take him and make him beg for her to do every filthy thing he has ever desired. Tease out every little need he has in his dark heart, and fulfil them all. The rawness of her desire is blinding. How does he do this to her? 

Her ears pick up the sound of approaching steps and she pushes him away, adjusting her dress to look as modest as she can. Her thighs are burning hot, as are her cheeks, but she does her best to ignore it.

“Ah.” Urianger stands a few paces away from them, looking Qestra over in a way that makes guilt well up in her throat. His voice is terse. “There she is. Thank you, Feo Ul.”

Feo Ul, in their diminutive pixie form, flies over and inserts themselves between Qestra and Emet-Selch, pointing an accusing finger at the latter. “So you are the one my sapling aches for. You cannot have her! She is ours!” Then they fall into a softer tone. “But we are amenable to you becoming ours, with a soul such as yours…”

“According to your rules, I am already claimed,” Emet-Selch says, amused. “I ate from her offering.”

“How wicked, learning the rules of our kingdom.” Feo Ul plants a kiss on Qestra's temple, then flits up to whisper in her ear. “His soul is denser than yours. But look at it, so heavy with sorrow and burdens. Are you sure you want one such as that, and not a more joyous one?”

Qestra sighs. “I cannot see souls, Feo Ul. We talked about this before.”

“Well. You have your hands full.” Shadows begin to form around Emet-Selch, but Qestra grabs his wrist before he is fully gone. Touching him like this is peculiar: she feels the shadows lick at her skin, swirling up towards her elbow as if they want to pull her along to wherever he is going.

“Have dinner with me,” she blurts out, less a question than a command. “In two days.”

He does not reply. The last thing she sees is his smile and the glimmer of his earring, and then she is holding nothing but air.

She is not sure if she is disappointed or relieved that he is gone.

“I beg thy pardon for the interruption,” Urianger says. “The others have need of rest, and are searching for you.”

His words hit Qestra like cold water. “Better not keep them waiting then.”

They find the others already waiting in the courtyard, amaros ready to take them home. Alisaie and Alphinaud are too busy falling asleep on each other’s shoulders to make any commentary on Qestra’s absence, but Thancred shoots her a look that tells her he has an inkling and he is unhappy about it. 

There is nothing she can say to placate him. Any of them. She knows what she is doing is a problem, a terrible one growing by the day. And just like her self-destructive urge that has haunted her entire life, leading her to leave her village, to mess up her time at Sharlayan, to the failed attempt at Solus’ life — she finds herself unable to veer off the course laid out in front of her. 

What worries her more, though, is that she does not feel it coming from anyone but herself. How much easier it would be, to justify her actions, if there was the nagging voice of Persephone screaming at her to throw herself at Emet-Selch.

If anything, Persephone wants her to stay away from him. 

No, it is all her. All Qestra. She wants to have Emet-Selch, wants him to get under her skin the way she wants to be under his. She burns with the desire to see how deep and how far it goes, and finds herself caring less and less for any collaterals left in the wake of them.

As much as she intends to possess him, desire has possessed her. 

She has seen this unfold before in her life. She does not need to turn to the cards to know her own history in this regard, to know the risk of it all ending very poorly. After all, despite their own foolishness, the seductive way they circle each other… They are on opposed paths. At some point, it will all come to a head. The later it does, the more mired in it she will be. The harder it will be for her to make the right choice.

By the Twelve, she hopes she will be able to find the strength when the time comes.

When they land, she takes Urianger aside, the cool air of the flight having sobered her thoughts up. “If you have to,” she begins, “if it comes to it. You can tell them.” 

“Be thou certain?”

“I know I am playing a risky game with him. Even if they never forgive me if the truth comes out, they deserve to know.”

He remains quiet for a few moments, then draws in a shaky breath. “I alone came, knowing what thou may have been doing. It still woundeth me to behold, even as I know the truth of thy interactions.” 

She could have dealt with Thancred’s or Alisaie’s anger — dealing with Urianger’s pain is far more difficult. Not least of all because she does not know how much she can tell him, and how much he has already guessed at himself. How much he saw before she heard him arrive. “Urianger… I am sorry for putting you through this.”

“As am I, milady. As am I.” 


	8. The Dark One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content tags for this chapter: oral sex, rough sex, vaginal & anal fingering, bathing/washing, teasing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8: The Dark One. _To give in, to surrender to temptation, is to become chained and bound to it._

  
“You’re late.” Emet-Selch is lounging on the couch in Qestra’s suite when she arrives back, a book in one hand and wine glass in the other.

She forgot. She forgot, and she is in a sorry state, and he is here in her suite waiting for the dinner she asked him to. 

It has been a long, horrific day, fending off an assault from Eulmore in Lakeland. It could have been a fair fight, but they brought sin eaters. There is nothing fair about that. If she thinks too hard about it she can still hear the cries of the dying soldiers, still hear Lyna screaming in pain, the wingbeat of the sin eaters descending upon them.

She stands at the door, drenched from the rain still hammering at the window, feeling like the mess she must be looking like. 

Emet-Selch raises an eyebrow at her. “You look like you have had a busy day.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She really, really doesn’t. She wants to scream, and she wants to kick something hard enough to break her own foot, and above all she wants him to stay. Slamming the door shut she drops her weapons and goes over to the bathtub, but her hands are too stiff, fumbling with opening the tap.

“This is depressing to watch,” he comments and snaps his fingers. Water fills the tub instantly, steam rising from the surface along with a soft herbal scent. 

She tugs at her shirt and winces. It is caked onto her skin with mud and blood and hopefully nothing else, and she will need to soak to even peel it off without hurting. Fine. She climbs in, her cold skin burning from the temperature difference. She sinks into the water, tilting her head back, her sore body screaming until she stills. 

“That bad, hmm?”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it.” She reclines in the tub, holding her hands above the surface. There is a slight tremor to them, and she submerges them into the water that is already taking on a brown-reddish hue from the grime she is covered in. 

“I don’t want to have dinner tonight.”

“Very well.” He closes the book and stands up. 

“I didn’t tell you to leave.”

“Say ’please’.”

She sighs. “You’re a bastard. Please. Don’t leave.”

He sits down again, refilling his wine glass. “Insults and sweet words do sound so good combined in your mouth, dear.” 

“Tell me a story.”

He regards her for a moment with narrowed eyes, then shrugs. “Very well. If it pleases you so. There once was a warrior of Light, who thought her fight was just and righteous. In fact, a lot of what she fought for was built upon lie after lie, and her journey became fraught with betrayals and falsehoods. Whom could she really trust?”

She shoots him a pointed glare.

“What? You wanted a story, but you failed to specify which kind.” He smirks, shrugging out of his coat. “Now what happened that has you in such a terrible state?”

Battle, unfairness, deaths. She settles for the summary of it. “Humiliation.”

“Defeat can be like that.”

“Is there any other flavour of it?”

“A few. Some are even quite delicious.”

They fall quiet, and she hates it. For once, she wants him to talk, to fill the silence with his drawling voice. Then she notices the way his eyes fall on her wet shirt, how it clings to her like second skin, almost see-through.

And in that moment, she needs to know.

“Do you want to touch me?” She breathes slowly, eyeing him. “Because I want you to touch me.” 

He puts down the wine glass, half finished, and she worries briefly that she said the wrong thing, asked too much. She closes her eyes. He is going to leave. It will be for the better. Why did she even say that? 

She hears the sound of rustling clothing, and braces herself for a disappointing night alone. Instead his naked fingers touch her neck. She jumps a little and his hands move up to her head, pulling out the pins keeping the hair out of her face. He puts them down on the side table, one by one, and then runs his fingers through her hair, taking care to undo any tangles. Combing through her hair with his gentle hands, never once tugging or pulling, and each time his fingers touch her scalp it is as if a jolt shoots through her.

Her breath trembles as he massages the cleanser into her hair, and it feels so good that she leans into his touch with a content sigh. 

“Mind the ears.” Her voice is barely a whisper, exhausted and strained. Whatever is happening right now feels like a fragile spell, and she is terrified of breaking it. She feels good like this, his hands in her hair, his touch on her skin, and the gentleness of it all. She wonders how many times he has done this, how many lifetimes of tenderness he has laid behind him between the cruelty and destruction wrought. 

And then she pushes the thought away and just enjoys the present moment.

“See,” he says. “I would have taken good care of you, had you not run away from me.”

“Yes, keeping me in a gilded cage would have been fun for you, wouldn’t it?”

“You would have wanted for nothing.”

“Except my freedom.”

“Freedom is an illusion. To have it you have to give up everything that matters. Is that a meaningful life?”

She tilts her head back far enough to meet his eyes. Whatever words were on her tongue vanish when she sees his expression: there is something so soft in it that she feel vulnerable just witnessing it. A blush creeps up her cheeks, and he sees it, his eyes flicker to it. It makes him smile. 

“I could take you somewhere else, somewhere private.”

“This is private enough for me.”

“As you wish. But then, this will not do.” He snaps his fingers and the muddied water in the tub is replaced. He fills a cup full of the new, fresh water and pours over her hair, rinsing the cleanser out. 

“Touch me.”

“I am.”

“More. I want more.”

“My, my. Greedy tonight, are we?”

“Very.” She leans her cheek against his arm. “For tonight… Show me how I would have wanted for nothing with you.”

“Your wish is my command,” he purrs in her ear, a note of satisfaction in his voice. She can admit to this surrender. A moment of disappearing into the fantasy he keeps dangling over her head.

He takes his time as he slips the shirt off of her shoulders, washing her skin as it is revealed, ilm by ilm. Her breath grows shallow at his touch, how slow and and thorough he is. 

”May I?” he asks, his hand hovering over her clavicle. 

”Yes.”

He undoes the top buttons of her shirt, dipping his hand down between her breasts without touching them to wet the sponge, then coming back up. His wet fingers trace the curve of her breast. Moving around the edge of the tub so that he is no longer behind her, he takes in the sight of her naked down to the waist. 

She brings her arms up to rest on the tub’s edges, enjoying his eyes on her body. 

He holds up his hand, fingers poised for a snap, and his eyes meet hers. ”May I?” His voice has become deeper, more intense. 

”Yes.”

The fingers snap and her clothes are gone, leaving her stark naked in the water. She remains still, her knees sticking up out of the water, waiting to see what he will do. 

His hands come to rest on her knees, then dips down on the outside of first her right thigh all the way to her ankle, and then up on the left side. She watches his hand in the clear water, how the muscles of his arms tense. When he comes back up to her knees he pushes them apart slightly as he dips the sponge between her legs, running it down the inside of her thigh. His knuckle brushes against her mound and her breath hitches in her throat, legs squeezing together on instinct. 

“Do you want to do this?” The huskiness of her voice betrays just how affected she is by him. She does not care. Let him know. 

“Yes.” He moves in to kiss her but she grabs onto the collar of his shirt, keeping him in place. 

“If we do this, it will be just you and me tonight. No Persephone. Only me.” Whatever else happens with her, tonight is hers alone. She wants to have him on her own, if only for this moment. 

Something changes in his expression, a flicker of something she cannot quite place. Disappointment? Hurt?

A knock at the door interrupts them. Shadows coalesce around Emet-Selch and he is gone, and she slams her hand down into the water, groaning. Excellent. Perfect. Absolutely cursed. She stands up, water dripping down her naked body, and grabs a silk robe. It clings to her wet skin, becoming almost see-through. Tying it together she opens the door to see Thancred. 

“Y’shtola thought I should come ask if you wanted to join us for drinks downstairs,” Thancred says. 

“I think I’m fine for tonight.” Her voice is huskier than she would like, but hopes that Thancred will mistake it for another emotion. 

“Are you sure? It was ugly out there.”

“Yes.” She leans out to kiss Thancred’s cheek. “I promise. If I start feeling morose, I’ll come down and cry on your shoulder.”

Thancred hides behind his hair, nodding as he leaves. 

She shuts the door and slumps her forehead against it, alone again. She is such a fool. What did she expect? She asked for too much. She wanted too much. 

Then Emet-Selch is there in an instant, pressing up against her from behind and pinning her to the door with his body, his fingers playing with the hem of the short silk robe. “Should I be jealous?” he breathes against her neck, the heat of it making her shiver. 

“Does it matter?”

“Not tonight, perhaps.” His teeth graze her jaw, followed by a hard and needy kiss. Her robe rides up from the friction between them and she feels his erection through his trousers, pressing against her ass. She grinds back against him, leaning her head back on his shoulder. His fingers come to rest on her throat and gently angles her head so he can kiss her cheek, her brow, and finally her lips. 

He stayed. She did not dare hope, but he stayed. 

She turns around and kisses him fully, needier than she has any right to be. Her thoughts are hazy from desire but she knows that she wants this, that she needs it. That she needs him, and his hands, and everything he can give her to make her feel better, if only for tonight.

Taking a step back he tugs the belt loose and parts her robe, one arm resting on her back. His fingers splay across her tan skin, moving over her abdomen to the curve of her waist and then up, his thumb circling her hard nipple. 

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks. 

In response, she grabs the back of his neck and drags him in for another kiss, smiling against his mouth. His hand drops from her breast, moving down between their bodies, his fingers slipping in between her thighs. She breaks the kiss to moan, and his teeth nip at her jawline before his mouth moves lower, tongue leaving a wet trail down her chest as he sucks on her nipple briefly. He sinks to his knees, kissing her stomach, then her hip, his hands nudging her thighs apart further. 

“If I tell you to stop, will you?”

“Yes,” he murmurs between kisses tracing the inside of her thigh. 

“Stop.”

His mouth instantly leaves her skin, and she aches to have it back. She aches when he meets her eyes and there is need in him too, written plain on his face. It is a dizzying prospect, to have such a powerful man not only on his knees in front of her, but to have him hang on to every word she says. To have him obey her. 

“You like to be in control,” he states, his thumb drawing circles on the back of her knee.

“Yes.”

He smirks. “Good.”

She pushes his hair back from his forehead, holding on to it. “Continue.” She keeps eye contact with him, a blush creeping up her face as his tongue moves between her folds, parting them to touch against her clit. His mouth on her feels so good that she moans loudly and there is a soft, muffled laugh coming from him, his eyes twinkling devilishly, and she tugs harder at his hair. Words are hard to form, and the sheer pleasure overwrites her coherent thoughts. 

A single finger presses into her, pulling out and then adding a second, both of them curling forward. She notices that his other hand is working between his own legs where he kneels on the floor, and she kicks it away, arching an eyebrow at his annoyance. 

“Keep focused,” she says. She does not just want his full attention, she demands it. 

And he provides. His fingers keep a solid slow rhythm moving in and out of her, and his tongue is sending her towards an orgasm faster and faster. She feels herself unravelling, moans growing louder and more shameless — she does not care which random by-passer out in the corridor hears her now. All she wants is to feel him, his mouth on her, his fingers inside her. 

Her body pulls taut as she balances on the precipice of bliss, her body instinctively trying to get away from the stimulation. He does not let go, following along, and she comes with a shuddering cry, knees shaking and legs giving way. 

Before she can slide down onto the floor into a crumpled heap, he has teleported her onto the bed and she lands with a soft thud. He resumes his position between her thighs, barely letting the first orgasm finish before he starts working toward another. She goes from trembling in the aftershocks to feeling another build up, grabbing his hair with both her hands and grinding her sex against his face. 

Digging her heels into the bed she arcs off the mattress, a feral moan escaping her lips as she comes and pushes him away, the sensation of his mouth now too much. She presses her thighs together and he moves up her body, covering her with kisses, eyes locked with hers the entire way. 

“Was it to your satisfaction?”

She hums, nodding. 

“Let it not be said I left your needs unfulfilled.” 

He rests over her, still wearing his trousers and shirt. She can see the outline of his erection pulling the fabric taut, and her hand is drawn to it, her fingers playing at the edges. His expression changes when she does, much to her smug amusement, the lids dropping and obscuring his gaze.

“Undress,” she demands. 

The thrill of him obeying is still a rush. He snaps his fingers and he is naked, and she reverses their positions so she is on top, straddling his thighs. His body is so… Pristine. No scars, no little flaws. So vainly crafted and shaped into his preferred image. She runs her hands over his chest, down across his stomach.

What she is doing — what they are doing — it is so wrong. Sleeping with the enemy. What would they call her if they knew — traitor? Fool? Tonight, she really does not care.

He watches her with a rapt expression, hands tucked behind his head. “You like feeling in power.”

“And you want me to be.”

“Maybe.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Maybe?” She reaches between them, touching the tip of his cock. He inhales sharply, but she feels how it grows impossibly harder and she beams at him. “Just admit it. You want me to be in power. You want me to tell you what to do to me.” 

Running one finger down the length it, she can’t help but chuckle when she feels his legs tense underneath her. She brings her thumb and index finger to her mouth and wets the tips of them, then touches his cock again, keeping her touch feather-light and teasing. 

He grabs her arm by the elbow and runs his hand down, holding on to her wrist. “Please,” he begs, his voice thick. 

Moving lightning fast, she pins him down to the bed, his wrists under her hands, and moves her sex close to his cock. She can feel it twitch against her labia, and grinds against it without letting it slip inside. He bites back the first moan, but when she moves against him again he does gasp. The head of his cock rubs against her sensitive clit and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, sighing softly as she keeps edging him, listening to his breathing get more and more tense. 

“Please,” he repeats.

“Please, what?”

“Show mercy.”

“Make me.”

He slips her hands out of her lock on them and grasps her ass, pushing her down hard and moaning as he comes. 

She reclines besides him, propped up on her elbows. She eyes the sticky white trail he has left on her belly. “You made a mess.”

“Then I better clean it up, don’t I?” He seems to hardly need any downtime at all, and she sees that he is already hard again as he starts licking his own come off of her skin. 

There is something so utterly debased and filthy about them — she has never been one to order another around like this before, but with him it comes to her like second nature. She wonders if it is another one of those things bleeding into her from Persephone — or if this is just her and him. It does not matter tonight. Tonight, she needs him to push all her thoughts away. 

“Stop.”

He obeys, a saliva string stretching between his mouth and her skin as he pulls away. He licks his lips slowly, glaring up at her. There is so much raw need in his eyes, so much hunger, and she is playing with fire. 

“How do you know exactly how to make me feel so good?”

“I remember you.”

“You remember her.”

“You labour under many misapprehensions, above all that you and her are so vastly different.” 

Grabbing him by his hair she yanks at it, causing him to hiss. 

“I told you. Only you and me tonight.” 

“Forgive me. I am given to these bouts of nostalgia, but let me make it up to you.” His hands hover over her skin, obediently not touching her though she can see the small twitches in his fingers. She wonders what he has in mind, and she is curious enough to allow him. Letting go of his hair she reclines, and his hands are instantly upon her skin, one dipping between her legs. He presses two fingers into her, sliding inside with ease while his thumb rests on her clit.

“You are so wet,” he breathes against her neck, smugness coating every word he utters. “How badly do you want me to fuck you?” To underscore his offer, he curves his fingers inside of her, pressing against the spot there that has her curling her toes into the sheets. 

She hooks her hand around the back of his neck and pulls him up to face her. “I am not one to beg.”

“For shame. The pleasures I could give you if only you yielded a sliver of your stubborn pride.” 

A surge of aether moves from his fingers into her and she arches off the bed, her nerves alight with pleasure so intense that for a split second she can barely breathe. She digs her fingernails into his skin, clinging to him, and he does it again. He laughs as she writhes in bed, crossing her legs as her entire body trembles. 

“Just a taste of what I can do for you,” he says, removing his fingers from inside her and sucking them clean, then shifts closer to her, cupping her face and kissing her deeply. 

Her breath still shakes, but she kisses him back eagerly, tasting herself on his tongue. As they continue kissing she relaxes again, and parts her legs while giving him a nudge. He understands and breaks the kiss, moving in between her thighs. As the tip of his cock brushes against her labia they both moan.

“Stop,” she whispers.

He freezes, a slight tremor in his arms. “You are so cruel.”

She marvels at how human he is in this moment, how very mortal it all is. How vulnerable he is, to hang on to every word she says. She moves a hand up and tucks a loose strand of his hair behind his ear. “Yes. With you.”

He laughs. “Does this make you feel powerful? In charge?”

“I say stop, and you stop. Yes, I think it does.” She licks her lips. “Beg me for it.”

He lowers himself over her, his lips grazing hers as he speaks, his voice deep and gravelly. “Please let me fuck you, Qestra.”

She moves her hand down between them, holding his cock in her hand and moving it towards her entrance, guiding him into her. 

He does not need more an invitation, pushing in slowly, dragging the moment out. He is bigger than what she is used to, but not uncomfortably so — in fact, the slight tension of accommodating him feels almost delicious. When he is finally flush against her she is breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on her face. 

He pauses, tenderly stroking the hair plastered to her face out of the way. “Are you fine?” 

“Yes,” she says, her voice half-way to a moan. “Just… Keep going…”

“Say ’please’.”

“Fuck off.”

He laughs against her neck. “No, my dear, I intend to fuck you.” He pulls out agonisingly slowly, almost the entire way, and she whimpers with need when he pushes back in. 

She did not realise how much she wanted him until this moment, but now she cannot deny it any longer — she needs him inside of her, as deep as he can go, she needs his mouth and his hands and his scent and his cruel laugh when she moans. Digging her fingers into her back she wraps her legs around him, drawing him in deeper. 

He starts to build up a steady rhythm, his strokes slow and deep, but she is so sensitive from his previous ministrations that she can already feel another orgasm building up in her. As her breathing grows more shallow he pays more attention to her face, watching as her lips part and moans spill out with every thrust. 

She meets his eyes and feels almost lost in them, but she wonders who he is seeing. Her, or Persephone? She cradles his head, whispering wordlessly. _Look at me. See me. See me. Know **me**._

She cannot form coherent words, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his face close to hers. He peppers her face with kisses, teeth nipping at her jaw, his breathing growing more laboured when she curls her fingers in his hair. 

She is the first to come, and while she clenches around him his thrusts grow more erratic until he too tumbles over the edge, burying himself to the hilt in her. 

And then he begins thrusting again, never once growing soft. 

“Cheater,” she gasps.

He silences her with a kiss.

She loses track of how many times she comes. She writhes in bed, exhausted and sore from one position, and he finds new angles to fuck her in. New ways to make her whimper and moan. Over and over, she pleads _don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop_. She knows she is lost in it, helplessly spiralling, but she does not care. There is just pleasure, and him, and what he can do to her tonight. He is making her forget about everything else weighing her down. With him, she feels so light and care-free. 

He must be using magic to stay hard, but she does not care. All she wants is the pleasure he can give her, no matter how he does it. All she wants is to be rendered a mess by him, over and over, until she cannot hold a single bad thought in her head. 

She is on her stomach, both their hands twisting the sheets around her as he pushes into her from behind. The angle causes her to let loose a deep, almost feral moan. The sensation of him inside her like this is sending her to the brink alone. 

Then all of a sudden he pulls out, pulling away from her body, and she almost starts crying. She feels how she gapes empty without him, how she is dripping with his seed on the inside of her thighs. 

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” she snaps at him, looking over her shoulder. She can barely move, her entire body a trembling mess. He has left her like this, filthy and depraved and furious.

He only laughs, stroking the back of her thighs in a way that makes her shiver. “So demanding. How about you beg me for a change? I do so want to hear those words from your lips.”

She groans into the bunched-up sheets. If she was not in this current state, she would walk out. She would make a point to show how infuriating he is. Thing is, he has her exactly where he wants her: too needy to leave, too wrought up and too close to the edge to do anything but want him. He wields many kinds of power, she thinks, but this, this is the one that might be her undoing.

Swallowing her pride, she whimpers out the word. “Please…”

“What’s that? I can’t quite hear you.” His thumb swipes over her clit with the lightest of strokes and she almost rips the sheets in half from it. 

“Emet-Selch, I need you. Please make me come. Please fuck me.” 

“Ah, such poetry. How is a man to resist?” With his hands holding on to her ass, he drives into her in one hard, swift thrust. The friction of it causes her to cry out, and the stunted orgasm he denied her begins to build up again. 

A pressure is added inside of her and she realises he has slid his thumb in alongside his cock, holding still as he does. An obscene wet squelch sounds in the room as he removes it, and she whines at the loss of tension. 

“Patience,” he says, his finger teasing along her rear entrance, putting pressure on it without forcing himself in. He waits, his other hand gently teasing her clit, and when the muscles relax he slips his finger inside. He thrusts once, twice, thrice more and she comes with a scream that leaves her throat hoarse and raw — but he is not done with her yet. 

A familiar current begins building between his fingers, and while she is still coming down from the last orgasm she feels another, stronger one spilling forth like a tidal wave. She thrashes in bed, her body instinctively trying to crawl away from the intensity of sensation even as she makes herself grind against him for more, more, _more_. The current crests and so do they both, Emet-Selch moaning as he spills himself inside her while a feral scream comes from her as she bucks and writhes against him. She feels like she is falling apart. She feels nothing but pleasure, wave after wave, seemingly endless and all too intense for her mortal body. 

“Stop,” she manages, the word difficult to form with her mouth — but he obeys. She gasps when the sensation ebbs away, every nerve in her body alight and coming down from a high she has never known before. He presses a kiss to her back and she squirms away, even that too much, at least right now. “Stop,” she whimpers again, too sensitive for his touch. 

A few minutes pass by as he sits next to her in silence, the tremors wrecking her body slowly fading away. 

“You did well,” he says, stroking her cheek.

She only has the energy to smile up at him, triumphant. 

* * *

Let it not be said that Emet-Selch has no tenderness in him. He has always been like this in the aftercare, no matter who he is with, but especially with mortals. They have endured a sliver of his power, of what he can do to them, and this is their reward. 

He fills up the bathtub with hot water and teleports Qestra to it, then climbs in opposite her. She looks at him with heavy half-lidded eyes as he cleans her again, starting with her legs and working his way up. Now and again she lets out of a soft moan when his fingers brush over a tender spot where a bruise will no doubt form.

She leans into his touch when he comes to her torso, and she shifts closer in the tub, the water spilling over as she wraps her legs around his waist and settles in his lap. As he scrubs her back she leans her head against his chest, her long ears brushing his cheek. 

“Is it always like this with you?” she asks, her voice hoarse. “So consuming.”

He chuckles. “You build up a tolerance.”

She does not reply, only sighing against his chest.

When the water begins to cool, he snaps his fingers and she lies sprawled naked on a now-pristine bed, the sheets changed and fresh through his magic and care.

He holds out a cup to her. “Drink. You need it.”

She cranes her head enough to sip from his offered wine, and he tilts the cup slowly until she has drained it all. Her lips shine wet and red, swollen from all the kissing, and he cannot stop himself from bending down to kiss her. She responds by touching his cheek gently, smiling into the kiss. When they part she tugs at his arm until he lays down with her on the bed, and as soon as he settles himself next to her she is fast asleep.

He turns in bed to watch her face, red marks from his bites lining her jaw and neck. For all her bluster, she is still only mortal. True, she endured far more and far longer than others have in her position, but it still is just a hollow echo of how things used to be, back in Amaurot. He loved her then.

A full-body shudder passes through her and her face contorts in fear and pain. He wonders what nightmares haunt her, what horrors she has seen. Touching his finger to her temple, he lets his darkness unfold, smothering the nightmare. He cannot give her peaceful dreams, but he can at least gift her the respite and calm of darkness, an utter dreamless sleep. 

Her body relaxes, and she curls up against him, her naked body pressed against his, arm draped over his waist.

He strokes her naked skin, tracing the scars on her body with his fingertips. He loves her now, still — and forever. No matter who she is. 


	9. The Hanged One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9: The Hanged One. _You have sacrificed yourself, and the terrifying calm before the storm shrouds your vision. You will know suffering. You will know Death. But you will do it for the greater good that guides your hand._

_No stars._

It is a dark night in the dream. Night? Perhaps it is just dark. Perhaps it’s a memory.

_Where are the stars. They should be here._

_Gone._

It’s so dark. Warm, yes, but so dark. And Persephone’s voice, calling out, the anguish in her making it crack.

_Where are the roads. I have nowhere to go._

He is there. He is listening. His hands are so cold, and she wrenches herself away. She keeps repeating it, _no stars_ , over and over, the despair taking over.

_But there are no stars, and there are no roads. How can I call this home?_

And then a bright light burns through Qestra. She awakens with a shudder as something drops onto her forehead. A fresh, still curled-up leaf, hanging down on a heavy vine from the variegated deliciosa above her bed. Strange, how fast they grow sometimes. She gently hooks her finger around the stem and guides it to fall over the headrest instead.

Emet-Selch’s fingers dig into her side from the slight movement and she settles back down, but he does not seem to awaken further. She blinks once, twice, staring at the profile of Emet-Selch next to her in bed. Everything they did the previous night is fresh in her mind, and red teeth marks shine on his jaw and neck, stark against his pale skin. He sleeps soundly, brow furrowed, and she considers touching him to smooth out the crease between his eyebrows.

He is strikingly beautiful, in his own way. Different than the Solus zos Galvus she once met, less battle-hardened and rugged from years on the field. Less calluses from weapons on his hands. There is something so delicately pristine about this body.

Would they have been like this together, if she had not run? Skin to skin, him able to fuck any coherent thought out of her brain? It does not matter. She ran, and he did not find her.

Still. The idea plays in her head. It may have been a sweet surrender for a few days, maybe even months, but she would have grown restless eventually. What would he have done then? Would she be a prisoner if she pushed the matter? And what of his wife? Would he have bent enough to forego the creation of that empire just for her, or would she always have been a fun little distraction to toy with when he might have need to blow off steam?

With a sigh, she shakes it off. It does not do to linger on that which never happened.

She climbs over him carefully, but he sleeps deep enough to not be bothered by the clumsy movements of her tenderised body. Her legs wobble a bit and she has to brace herself on a chair before it calms down.

One part of her wants to get back in bed, wake him up and re-live everything they did during the night. The other part of her is terrified of doing it in the daylight, terrified of the chasm of complicated emotions threatening to pull her in. The closer she gets to him the less she feels sure of what he wants from her.

So she ignores him and goes about her usual morning rituals, because she has to do something with herself to not give in to temptation.

The new plants are taking well, even after transplanting and adding new nutrients. She spritzes water on the green leaves, as the Crystarium’s humidity levels leave much to be desired for growing things. New tender shoots are emerging, beginning their slow unfurling.

Remembering what she saw Persephone do in Emet-Selch’s memory, she sinks her finger into the soil of the sansevieria and digs until she touches upon a root tendril. Curling her finger around it she sends just a tiny spark of aether into it, the hard leaves shuddering but nothing else happens. She tries again, letting go a bit of her restrictive control, and it starts growing. The leaves reach higher and higher, the terracotta pot cracks under the pressure of the uncurling roots, and still it grows.

The roots work their way outwards, to the other pots, moving into the soil and those plants begin to expand as well. New shots crackle, sap bleeding from the stems with the force of new growth.

She lets go, and it stops — but it does not contract. The entire corner looks wild and overgrown, soil and shards on the floor that she has to navigate around as she moves backwards. All the new shoots are pure white. All the new leaves… White.

A metallic taste lines her mouth and she walks over to the full-length mirror by the wardrobe. Light. Cursed light. She wipes it off her lips and studies her own reflection. Bruises line her body, and the bite marks she left on him are perfectly copied on her own body, from jaw and neck down over her breasts and hips. He certainly left a mark on her.

“Didn’t think you actually would.” Ardbert is behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror, but when she turns to him he averts his gaze and puts a hand up to shield himself from her nude body. “Shows what I know, don’t it?”

She remains quiet, not wanting to wake up Emet-Selch. Nor is she going to make Ardbert more comfortable. If he wants to bother her right now, of all times, then he pays the price. He is a ghost, anyway. It does not matter.

“It’s funny. We gave everything of ourselves to the Ascians to save our world, and in the end, it wasn’t them that did anything for us. It was Minfilia. I have spent so long hating them. Then I look at him and it’s like I remember him from somewhere. Is it like that with you too?”

Her stomach flutters in recognition, and she nods.

Ardbert snorts. “We do stupid things when we get caught up in our emotions. Heavens know I have. Just hope he was worth it.”

It is a good question. Is he?

“And pray to whatever you believe in he doesn’t betray you when you need him the most, eh?” He makes to leave.

Out of instinct, she reaches out to grab Ardbert, but they are both surprised when her hand doesn’t just go through him like everything else does. She connects. She feels him, his aether. Where everything else he has tried to touch — _everyone_ else — has passed through him, he is solid in her hands.

“How are you doing that?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. They both stare at where their hands touch, neither moving.

“I thought there was something about you.” He seems poised to say something more, but a knock at the door interrupts him.

“Are you awake? You are late for the meeting.”

“Shit.” She grabs a robe from the floor and wraps it around herself tightly. Ardbert is gone by the time she’s by the door, much to her mixed relief and annoyance. She opens it a crack, seeing Y’shtola and Urianger in the corridor. “I will be there as soon as I can. I just overslept.”

“Did you?” Y’shtola narrows her eyes at Qestra, and ducks under Qestra’s arm into the suite before the Viera can keep her out. She stops in the middle of the suite, staring at the bed with a scowl. The bed with a very much naked Emet-Selch on it, his waist barely covered by a thin sheet. “I see.”

“Thou were correct in thy guess,” Urianger says, joining Y’shtola in the room.

Qestra turns to him. “Did you tell her?”

Urianger shakes his head. “Nay. Y’shtola’s eyes see more than the rest of us. ’Twould be prudent to remember, if thou wish to keep secrets truly secret.”

“Do you mind?” Emet-Selch groans, an arm draped over his face. ”I am trying to get some rest.”

“Busy night, was it?” Y’shtola’s voice drips with poison.

“Oh, quite,” Emet-Selch laughs on the bed and Qestra hides her face in her hands. “Where you lot failed to provide for her, I offered my succour aplenty and quite vigorously.”

The tips of Urianger’s ears redden.

Qestra growls. “Be. Quiet.”

“I am not going to tell the others,” Y’shtola says. “But you should.”

“Maybe we could let my personal life stay my own.”

Y’shtola scowls, pointedly glancing to Urianger before turning her withering gaze back to Qestra. “Secrets have never served us well. How much do you intend to risk? Should not we, whose very lives depend on you, be privy to it?”

“Could we continue this later? I need to get dressed. And a meeting awaits, as you came to tell me.”

“Fine.” Y’shtola’s tail swishes in annoyance. She is very much not fine with anything she has seen in the room right now. “Make sure to cover up the marks, if you intend to lie, or they will tell your story for you.”

Emet-Selch sits up on the bed, rolling his head from shoulder to shoulder. “Oh please do get going and give me some peace. She will be there once she stops by a chemist, lest she wants to grow ripe with child.”

Both Y’shtola and Urianger’s eyes widen as they turn to stare at Qestra.

“Could you shut the fuck up?” she hisses at Emet-Selch, then turns to usher the two Scions out.

They leave, reluctantly, and with a tension simmering between them. When Urianger closes the door behind him, Qestra takes a long, deep breath.

She reaches for a dagger hanging by the door and in three long strides falls upon Emet-Selch on the bed, sharp point pressing into his throat. His hand catches her wrist and holds it in an iron grip, hard enough to hurt, but she does not drop the blade.

An infuriating smile plays on his lips, his thumb stroking gentle circles on the inside of her wrist. His eyes study hers, waiting.

“This is all me,” she says, pushing against his grip enough to draw just a pinprick of blood from his throat. “All because of you.”

“You give me so much credit, dear.” His other hand slips between her legs, and she sucks in a shivering breath as his fingers discover just how wet and hot she is. He laughs. The bastard laughs at her as he wrenches her hand away as if it was nothing, leaning closer to her face. “It would seem you like this,” he breathes against her lips. “Is it the game that excites you? The back and forth? Or is it bloodlust thrumming in your veins?”

“I wish Persephone’s aim had been truer in Garlemald.”

His fingers press teasingly against her entrance. “Do you now. Then what would you know of us, hmm?”

“I would know less, and no doubt be happier for it.” She bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, and he hisses. She pulls back a little and laps up the droplets of him that have spilled onto her lower lip. His eyes are fixed on her tongue, blood welling up from the two cuts she inflicted.

“As much as I would enjoy this…” He underscores his point by slipping two fingers into her quickly, then bringing them to his mouth to savour her taste, licking them clean with an appreciative noise. “I daresay your friends will come back in the middle of it and forcibly drag you away.”

She climbs off him with a snarl, trying to hide just how much she wants him in this moment despite how frustrating he is. Maybe because he is that way. By the Twelve, she is cursed if it is because of _that_.

With a snap of his fingers, not only is Emet-Selch dressed but she is too — though not in an outfit of her own. She stares at herself in the mirror, the scarlet and black of the extravagant dress in the same hues as his own outfit, dripping with delicate gold chains for detailing. As if he has marked her. As if they belong together.

He notes her concern with amusement, standing behind her to admire his creation. “Too much?”

“Yes.” She is already in enough trouble with the Scions. Adding insult to injury will drive the wedge further between them.

“Shame. The colour suits you.” He moves his hand across the fabric, the outfit altering to a simple pair of black trousers and a loose white shirt. His hand lingers over her collarbone, but then he decides against whatever he had in mind. She cannot help but wonder, and cannot help herself but to file it away, another note among many she has to delve into at some time with him.

He waves his hand dismissively. “Run along now. You have errands to do and you are already late.”

Gods, she will make him pay for this.

* * *

Qestra clutches the bottle of contraceptive potion in her hand as she runs to the Ocular, taking the steps three at a time without breaking a sweat. Late, late, late. She can practically hear the chanting of Feo Ul in her head. In front of the chamber door, she pops the cork and sweeps it down in one go, stifling a cough. The bitter taste of the draught burns at the back of her throat as she pushes the door open, and every face in the room turns to her. Including Emet-Selch.

Of course it would be too much to ask for him to not show up to this one meeting. Self-important, busy-body bastard.

“Fit to join us finally, are you?” Alisaie says. Qestra scans their faces, trying to discern if Y’shtola and Urianger have told any of them — but no, besides those two, no one else looks at her as if she has just betrayed them.

How long will that last.

She closes the door and slips into the half-circle between Alphinaud and the Crystal Exarch. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“As I was saying. I have a rough idea where to find one of the wardens in Amh Araeng, but not precisely. I hunted one down to an abandoned mine.”

Emet-Selch’s voice whispers in her ear, despite them standing on opposite ends of the room — and his lips not moving. “ _You owe me a dinner, by the by. Don’t think I have forgotten._ ” He is steadfastly watching as the Scions debate their next course of action, arms crossed over his chest.

She shifts on her legs.

“ _Come now. Are you still angry at me? I can see that crease you get, it’s the same when you are out hunting._ ”

She discreetly moves her hand up to scratch at her nose, making sure to use her middle finger for it.

“ _If you are trying to rile me up and insult me, you would do well to strike with precision and note crudeness, despite how charming it can be coming from you.”_

Minfilia speaks up, an eagerness in her that almost makes her trip over the words, her voice ringing out clear. “Isn’t it true that the Oracle could see the Light of a sin eater from malms away? Surely a Warden would seem like a blazing beacon by comparison?” Then she drops her gaze. “To the real Oracle of Light, I mean. The real Minfilia. But if we travel to Amh Araeng, to where she halted the Flood, I could summon her back. I could help us. _She_ could help us.”

A cold shiver runs down Qestra’s spine.

“Don’t,” Thancred says tersely.

“Don’t what? Do what I can? What we both know is the right thing to do?”

“Do not presume to know my mind. You have no idea what you’re proposing.”

“ _Oh, the girl is onto something indeed. Is it crossing your mind too?_ _To be reckless._ ”

Qestra opens her mouth, about to interrupt Minfilia and Thancred’s heated argument when Emet-Selch laughs. “I thought you were a rather underwhelming reincarnation of the Oracle,” he says, “but it all makes sense now. The Oracle lies dormant within you, doesn't she? But to draw on her true power, you must become one, both body and soul. To wit, one being must consume the other. Who shall be the lucky winner?”

There are many things sliding into place in her mind, puzzle pieces falling close together, close enough to almost fit… She is starting to see something. A sliver of a shape. And a horrible destiny. A terrifying road.

Is it the same for her? The words ring so true. Who shall be the lucky winner, indeed. And who does Emet-Selch want to have, at the end of it all? Her, or Persephone?

She thinks she knows the answer. And she will not yield to it.

Thancred brushes past her on the way out, frustration simmering in his every move. “I’ll meet you at the gates tomorrow,” he calls out to the rest of them, stomping off in a rage after having endured Emet-Selch’s prodding.

“ _What a fascinating turn of events today_.”

Qestra meets Emet-Selch’s eyes across the room. Determination settles into her chest, cold and sharp like a steel blade. She will risk it all. Her heart is set on this gamble.

It takes five steps to cross over to him. She can feel the eyes of everyone in the room land on her as she addresses him. “Take me somewhere private. You have me until tomorrow morning.”

“Qestra, wait—”

“You can’t just!”

“What are you _thinking_?!”

She hears their cries, she hears them protest, but all she sees is Emet-Selch’s outstretched hand and maniacal smile, thinking he has won. She takes his hand, digging her nails into his palm. He has no idea who he is inviting into his home.

* * *

Bravery and foolery go hand in hand with her, it would seem. Not that Emet-Selch minds, for now. It will certainly become a nuisance once she sets her mind on something truly foolish.

And so he takes her to his recreated version of Amaurot. He has long wondered if a visit there would unlock something within her, and since she has deigned to ask for it so nicely, why not.

It is passing strange to see her moving through his old home, kicking off her shoes and touching everything she passes by as if she is looking for something. He follows and watches, but she keeps her guard up, her face impassive.

It is not… An exact copy of the Amaurot home. The size and scale differs. There have been some extra flourishes, some touches of what he appreciated in Garlemald added. As the centuries drone on, one acquires some new tastes. And as she seems to find the touches of the imperial palace fascinating, he at least has her attention.

She pauses in the hall, looking up at a painting of him with the empress. “She really was beautiful, you know.”

“She was.” With a wave of his hand, that part of the painting is blotted out, black spreading like spilled ink over her face.

“And she was too good for you.”

“Very likely.”

“No desire for children again?” Her tone is playful, but the question is anything but.

“I intend to build no empire with you. And with all that light suffusing your aether, who is to say what would be born.” He considers what he is leaving out: he wanted to see how she would react. He wanted to know the outline of what he was not seeing — did she have someone else warming her bed? He got his answer. She does not need to know anything more.

He never had Persephone for himself in this way. All his.

She hums, but does not press the question further. She meanders on, fingers trailing along the wall.

“Your friend the Exarch is no doubt trying to look in on us with his mirror, to ensure I am not hurting you.”

“Will you?”

“Only if you command me to.”

She raises an eyebrow, but a smile plays on her lips. Qestra differs in this way from Persephone: there is something wholly mortal about her constant tiptoeing the line with danger so carelessly, the drumming of adrenaline in her veins deafening even to him. The way her pupils dilate when he says something just laced with enough danger.

Truly, they play a strange, thrilling game.

“When you summoned Zodiark…” She hesitates, looking at him.

“It goes like the summoning of all primals go — though I reckon you have never come close to knowing such power, dabbling with the pathetic primals you have.”

He can see the cogs of her mind working. Sometimes, her gaze fixes him in such a way that wonders what he is submitting to, being near her. And yet another part of him relishes in seeing her like this, seeing her working the little pieces he offers her. What will she put together from it all, he wonders. What will she make of the truth she skirts ever closer to.

What will she bring forth with her clever mind and quick hands when she understands?

But he has done this dance before, with other self-titled heroes. One must practice restraint. One must not rush too far ahead. One must not become too hopeful, lest they snap under the burden of truth.

“What I wanted to ask was… Did Zodiark temper you?”

“Yes,” he sighs. “What else? It is part of their nature, the nature of all primals. It is an exchange. We offer prayer, faith and devotion, manifesting the will of the Star into a deity. And from us, He draws His strength, and His darkness.”

“And at the end of all, still only a primal.” She smirks. Oh, how wrong she can be. How overly simplistic. “Your grandson calls me eikon slayer. As does his son.”

“You feed into the Garlean propaganda well.”

She grimaces. “You are so fond of that empire of yours.”

“I founded it. One can appreciate their own handiwork without necessarily wanting to ever set foot in it again.”

“No harem of lovers to keep you busy there?”

“The charms of that grow tire quickly. And alas, it did not fit into the strict morality of Garlemald, though attempts were made.”

“Poor, poor you.”

She marches onwards through the sprawling penthouse, pushing door after door open. Finally, in the grand library, she slows her steps and takes her time as she reads the back of every tome gathered there. Twelve thousand years of histories, stories and magick he should keep out of her hands.

Perhaps a little distraction is in order.

He slips his hand under the loose shirt she wears, the heat of her skin burning against his gloved fingertips.

“I thought we came here to make up for a missed meal,” she says softly.

“There are many ways to sate my hunger.” He brushes his lips against the exposed ilms of skin at her neck, just a graze of teeth to make her suck in a hard breath.

“I guess I can think of a few.”

“Good.” He hooks an arm around her waist possessively. “Tell me what you desire.”

“To finish this strange house tour.” She slips out of his arm and dances away on her tiptoes, flashing him a hungry smile. “What is this, some pocket dimension?”

“Nothing as exhausting as that. We are still on the First, if it eases your fears. You can always find your way back to civilisation if you put your mind to it.” Though he does leave out the part where she might drown in the ocean’s depths. Minor, minor detail.

“So you have just found a home, furnished it with all of this, and made it yours?”

“I am Ascian. If I can shape a body into any form I so desire, do you really think I would struggle with something as simple as bricks and mortar, paper and cloth?”

She does not listen. She has spotted a pair of stained glass doors, pushing them open.

He thinks there is a compliment in how she pauses on the threshold, a quiver in her body as she gazes out onto the garden. His garden. Of course, he never had the depth of Persephone’s interests, but the years have let him refine his art. It is a masterpiece, all things considered; especially in her mortal eyes.

There are not names for all the flowers and plants and vines that exist here. Some of them are pale imitations of what Persephone once grew for a night only, for his eyes only. Some of them are memories from fallen nations, from sunken continents. All of them range in black, red and white. He has been fond of those colours lately. He has been fond of velvet textures on petals, and thorns.

She crosses her arms over her chest, drinking it all in with her roving eyes.

Sometimes he has to remind himself that she is not wholly Persephone. Not _his_ Persephone. This is one of those moments: her, framed by flowers, lips parted and eyes wide in awe. She is a fraction of who she once was.

Some souls go through thousands of years without ever realising who they once were. She thinks she knows, but he has made the mistake of trying to force the matter only once. He will not do it again. No matter how much he yearns to gather her into his arms and have her understand the depth of his regrets.

Her attention returns to him, and the way she regards him now is different. Determined. As if she has decided upon something and he is the answer.

“Do you like it rough?” she asks, smiling as she licks her lips.

“Do you even need to ask,” he purrs, leaning in to touch his tongue tip to hers. There is an odd taste of coldness to her. A touch of light, almost. Or blood. The taste is so brief he cannot fully discern it.

“And if you want me to stop, you can just…” She snaps her fingers. “Right?”

He nods.

“Good.” And then she slaps him. Hard. He opens his mouth to say something and she slaps him again, her pupils dilating and nostrils flaring. The sting in his cheeks burns, blood rushing to them. She grabs him by his chin when he tries to move in for a kiss, tutting. “Not this time.”

“Do you want me to beg for it again?”

“You can try.” Taking him by his collar she slaps him again, roughly shoving him down onto his knees.

He likes her like this. The anger. The rage. There is something intoxicating about seeing her come into her own power like this. He puts his hands on the back of her thighs, looking up at her as his hands slide upwards, goading her to do something to him again.

She delivers. With no tenderness she puts one of her feet on his chest and presses him down until his back is on the ground, moving the foot on top of his throat. “You humiliated me today.” The ball of her foot presses down hard enough to make him choke. “So I am laying out some ground rules now. And you will obey me.”

He runs his hand up the back of her leg, smiling up at her through his heavy eyelids, hazy from how loud the blood is thrumming in his ears.

“You will never, ever do what you did this morning again. Do you understand?”

“I was being helpful.” It is a struggle to form words, his voice hoarse under the pressure she applies.

“You know exactly what you did.”

He grins. Of course he does.

“Strip.” She spits out the command. He obeys a little. Just an inch. Only his robe falls from his body, but it is enough to reveal how she is making him feel. She looks over him with a twisted smile, taking an interest in the outline of his half-hard member. “My, my. You like this.”

He flicks his finger against her leg, magicking away her trousers. “Come down here and I will show you what I really like.”

“Tell me what you want,” she purrs, but the words have a sharp knife edge to them. “Tell me your fantasy.”

“You,” he says, digging his fingers into her calf, one hand encircling her ankle. “Your pussy on my face as I drink deep of you.” He can see the glistening wetness at the apex of her thigh, his words stirring her like her actions stir him. Words linger on the tip of his tongue, unspoken: _I want you to remember exactly who you are to me, and to judge me for it._

The foot on his throat is removed, and she stands with one leg on each side of him as she unbuttons the shirt, taking her time. The desire to tease overwhelms him, despite how hard the palm of her hand against his cheek was. Ah, the mere memory of that surge of pain causes his cock to twitch. His fingers trace up the inside of her long legs, her thighs, his fingers skimming along the seam. Catching a few drops on his fingertips he brings them to his mouth, savouring the taste.

“Now that we have no urgent squabbles to disturb us…” He holds her gaze, wanting her to watch, aching for her to react. “I intend to take my time with you.”

There is something about her taste that makes him rock hard. Familiar, and yet wholly Qestra. It fascinated him last night, it drew his attention this morning, and it has him enraptured now. With a firm tug he brings her knees down on either side of his face, and he wraps his arms around her strong, thick thighs, raising his head to meet her.

She laughs above him, finally shedding that damned shirt and relaxing into him. His tongue moves along the outside of her labia, lapping up every escaped drop, sucking on the sensitive flesh to make her whimper. The responses he draws from her sound like music to his ears.

She straddles his face, and he laps at the slit, drinking in deep of her taste before plunging his tongue into her. If she will not let him fuck her with his dick, he will fuck her with his tongue. She will scream his name either way.

He tries to move a hand up to aid in stimulating her, wanting to circle her clit, wanting to push three or four fingers into her and stretch her open for him to bury himself in her, but she catches it and holds it down. “Impress me,” she says, the words spilling from her lips closer to a moan. “Make yourself worthwhile.”

He growls, moving his mouth onto her clit and closing his lips around it, sucking lightly. If she wants proof, he will wring her out. He will reduce her to begging and then he will be the one to string her along to messiness. She bucks into his mouth, grinding down hard. Her hands thread through his hair, nails digging into his scalp. The sting of pain to everything she does drives him on, wanting more and wanting her to lose control.

Her legs tense around his ears, crushing in on his head with a bruising force. She gushes into his mouth as she comes, and he eagerly drinks down of it all, pushing his tongue into her, the tip of his nose buried against her clit. Her inner walls contract around his tongue, and though he can feel the way she is tugging at her hair, she is not screaming. He wants to hear it, needs to feel it. _Unravel for me._

Much to his dismay, she leaves his face, sliding back to straddle his waist and dripping onto his shirt. He can see the sweat between her breasts, the way she is panting for air, and above all — she is still coming even now. His ministrations have paid off.

She looks down on him, her eyes hazy and voice breathless, as her hand reaches down and cups his engorged member through the fabric of his pants. “Condom,” she demands, even as she starts undoing the laces, working to free him in a few quick movements of her hands.

“Still sore about this morning?” Well, he will not disappoint her. When her fingers meet his cock, it is covered already, covered and aching for her heat. He yearns to feel her mouth around him, just once, but laying his desires bare when she is like this is bound to lead to more suffering. Another time. There must be other times. He will move mountains and break lands to make sure she stays with him this time.

Positioning herself, she does not even look at him, her eyes closed as she chases her own bliss, lips trembling. She is so tight, squeezing him as she practically impales herself on his length. Dimly, he thinks he should have fingered her, prepared her, taken his time — and yet he cannot deny how good it feels to finally bottom out in her and her muscles are already spasming around him. How good it _looks_ , her on top of him, towering over him, the outline of her swollen clit visible as she rocks her hips forward.

And then she just sits there, head tilted back, her breathing slowing. There is a crackle of energy in the aether, he can feel it tugging below him, inside of him, a power finding its home inside of her. A familiarity he thought long lost. How strong she is, to be able to do this. How full of potential she is. His hands reach up to her breasts, rolling her nipples between his fingers, tugging at them to draw her attention.

“Kiss me,” he begs, reverent and needy hands trying to pull her down so they are face to face. “Kiss me. Let me taste you.” But she slips away, avoiding him, keeping this out of reach. He has finally voiced what he wants, and it is such a tiny thing, one she gave him willingly yesterday — and she is cruel enough to deny him. Desire curls in his belly, and he slams up hard into her. It does nothing to break her reverie.

“Behave,” she murmurs, her words punctuated by a pinprick of pain as thorns dig into his wrists. Vines wrap around his arms, pinning him down to the earth. The vines keep encircling him, the sharp thorns piercing his skin and drawing from his aether to keep growing, keep him tied down. He laughs, struggling against them and tearing himself free to touch her, even as the growing tendrils wrap all the way up his arm, straining against his muscles.

She starts to ride him, her eyes closed. Is she even aware of what she is doing, what ancient part of herself she has tapped into? He doubts it. But he enjoys it.

Persephone used to do this to him.

He bucks up against her each time she sinks down, meeting her with all the force he can muster up. Behind her, new flowers blossom, petals unfurling and unfolding in a cornucopia of colours and scents and variety, each new one outdoing the previous. She snaps her hips forward, running her hands down her own body and touching herself where their bodies are joined. The smell of earth and sex and sap fill his head, and the air is thick with pollen.

“Kiss me,” he pleads again, but she ignores him, too wrapped up in her own bliss. Her hands brace on his chest as she lifts herself almost fully off him, the tip of his dick almost coming out before she pushes down. It forces him over the edge, and he comes whimpering a name. The vines dig tighter into him, the allure of sleep pushing at the edges of his consciousness even as he strains to see it through to her end. Not that he can do much, restrained as he is, nothing more than watch and plead.

At least he can use that to nudge her over.

“Let me feel you come,” he groans, using magick to will himself to stay hard, even as she is tapping into his aether to fuel her own schemes. “Let me hear you moan my name.” _My true name. Please say you remember it. Please say it._

She slaps him, and it spurs him to draw on his last reserves of energy to break free and dig his fingers into her hips, pulling himself up to latch his mouth onto her breast. He laves at the nipple, alternating between sucking and biting, shrugging to snap off any vine that tries to pull him away from her. He wants her mouth, he wants to kiss her, but she keeps leaning her head away.

Her skin is so warm, warm like sunlight… Even here, fathoms below. He could lose himself in this, the way she is meant to be, always.

When she crests, her inner walls contract on him so hard that he comes again too, digging his teeth into the soft swell of her breast. He pumps up once, twice, and then he cannot fight off the pull of the growth anymore. The vines tug him down, slithering over him, wriggling in under his clothes and digging in.

He is so exhausted he cannot keep his eyes open, but he groans in disappointment when her skin leaves him.

“You took the stars from me… And now I take her from you.”

Is it Persephone speaking? Is it Qestra? He cannot tell. He thinks, even as she withdraws from his body, that it is both of them, both of them with him, lovingly punishing him. Lovingly hating him. Just as he deserves.

* * *

If Emet-Selch thinks to take her to a place as strange as this, as vibrant with aether and colour and scents as this, and for Qestra to stay put with him… He is sorely mistaken. She may be craven, and driven by terrible desires, but she will not let this opportunity slip through her hands.

But she may have overdone it. The taste of light was in her mouth the whole time she was playing with him, blinding her to anything but the pleasure. She had not quite realised what she had let go of. How control she had been exercising. All she wanted to do was make sure he did not kiss her and taste how weak she was.

Instead, she may have let Persephone take up so much room in her that she was struggling to keep up. She has no idea what happened to Emet-Selch in the garden, no idea how she has managed to put clothes on, nor how she is even getting her body to move forward.

My body. _My body._ It’s my body _. For now._

Elevator. Buttons. Down. An order, or a thought of her own? The lines blur. She slams her hand against all of them but only one actually activates. All these floors she cannot access. What is he hiding from her. All these abysses lining her path with him, these gaping maws of omissions.

Down on the street level, she marvels as she looks upwards at the curving architecture. Such a strange place. And so familiar. Is it designed like a city of Doma, or Nagxia? Ilsabard? It nags at her, as if she has been here before, but she can think of no name that fits it.

She turns down one of the great avenues, into a square when light surges into her field of vision, blotting out the contours at the edges and washing everything out. Pain surges in her chest, and she struggles to breathe, clawing at her own skin. It is burning cold, and she falls to her knees. Droplets of light spill from her lips, and she tries to slow down, tries to draw in full breaths of air, but she cannot. There is just so much light within her and it _hurts_.

A fearful thought rises in her: that she will die here. That no one will know what happened with her, except Emet-Selch.

_Shut up. Keep going. We are almost home._

So she peels herself off the street and stumbles forward again, her eyes falling back to look upwards.

Is that… Water? Is she underwater? Where in the seven hells has Emet-Selch taken her?

She falls again.

_Call for him. He has to be here. He has to help us._

“Hyth…” She coughs, the name so unfamiliar in her mouth that she can barely wrap her tongue around the vowels. “Hythlodaeus!”

A strange sound comes from above. No, not a sound — she can understand it. A language she has never spoken, but one she yet understands each and every word in. “Are you suffering, little one?”

She gasps for air, nodding in mingled terror and relief. Terror, because a spectre three times her height is bent over her, and relief because at least she is not entirely alone.

“May I sit with you, then? Perhaps I can be of aid.” He crouches down next to her, the face covered by a mask. “You, I think, are not of my time, strange and small as you are. Yet you know my name. And I know your soul.”

“I don’t understand.”

The ghost… Laughs? It _laughs_. “Surely, some part of you knows already. After all, you were always quicker on the uptake than either of us back then. Of course, this is a strange place. It must be confusing.”

The pressure over her chest lets up and she can breathe more easily. “Emet-Selch brought me here.”

“Ah. He would. The Grand Architect of the Convocation. I wonder what our old friend has in store for you, having brought you to this stage.”

Realisation sinks in. An Ascian can create anything he so desires, was that not what Emet-Selch implied? And so… “He built this. All of this.” And she knows the name. Amaurot. What else could it be?

_Home. Home. I need to go home._

“Where is my home,” she says, and Hythlodaeus extends a hand towards a building across the square.

“Welcome back,” he says, the outlines of his ghostly form fading. “I hope you find a pleasant memory, though who can say what awaits you. You have been away so long.” And then he is gone.

And Persephone is quiet, again. Stilled.

The door gives way and she enters the empty lobby, resplendent with gold in-lays on black marble. Excessive. Suitable for Emet-Selch’s aesthetics, no doubt. In the elevator, only one button responds to her, and she rides it to the top floor. There is a strange discrepancy in scale, entering the long corridor. It is far more normal-sized. As if it was intended for her. Just like the one Emet-Selch took her to.

She tries each and every door along the red-carpeted corridor, but none give until she stands in front of the last one. The door swings open and it feels… It feels like coming home. It does not make sense. The entire place is empty, but she knows it. If she closes her eyes, she can see an outline of what should be there, shimmering like a mirage. There, a teacup left to grow stale. A trail of dirt between projects. A stack of paintings leaning against the wall she has not bothered with hanging up yet. And something else…

It is what is missing that makes her stop breathing as a thousand things fall into place. Emet-Selch admitting to killing Persephone. _There are no stars._ The Underworld. The red seeds in her mouth and the black blade in his hands.

_Yes. Finally._

“Had your fun?” There are sprigs tangled in Emet-Selch’s hair and dirt on his cheek. Still the amused tone in his voice, but he seems just a little annoyed at her.

“You looked like you needed rest,” she says with a shrug too casual. As if she is not standing in something he looks like he want to drag her out of. She feels like she is trespassing.

“Only after what you did to me.” His eyes narrow. “Where did that power come from?”

She cannot answer that question, because she does not wholly want to know the truth herself, and instead counters with a question of her own. “Were there stars in the sky over Amaurot?”

“Of course, what an asinine question.”

“I see.” She licks her lips, fear making her heart drum loudly in her ears. “’ _But there are no stars, and there are no roads. How can I call this home?’_ ”

Her words spark something in his face, and he brusquely grabs her arm.

“I think it is about time I returned you to your friends. They must be worried sick, and I have more important matters to attend to than you.”

When they teleport into the Crystal Tower, a surge of magick moves towards Emet-Selch and Qestra. He blocks it easily, sighing at the unnecessary violence hurled his way.

She will not let him go yet though.

“But there are no stars… You know what that means, don’t you? And now, so do I.” She takes a step closer to him, eyes on him only, ignoring her comrades. This is it. It has to be now. They have to see, and he has to be seen. “Take me to the Underworld.”

His voice drops low. “For that, you would have to die.”

She wishes she had it in her to hesitate. But she needs to _know_ more than she fears anything else. “Then kill me.” The words shock her, even as she utters them, but she _means_ them whole-heartedly.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned with finishing your little jaunt across the realm to slay the lightwardens?”

“You found a way to kill her and she found a way back, didn’t she? Teach me. Because the root of whatever this mystery is, the answer is in the Underworld. In every moment I have seen with her, it must have been from there. No stars. No road.”

It is a strange trump card to play, but there is no other way to describe it. Sure, she has revealed their entanglement, but it feels less like her announcing her interest in him and more like revealing _him,_ pulling the veil back just a little.

She is handing him everything his brethren has ever wanted on a silver platter — to take the Warrior of Light out of the equation when she gets too troublesome, is it not? She is tempting him to take it, in front of witnesses. She is testing him, too. What does he want the most? Her death, his answers? Qestra the enemy, or Persephone of his past?

She grabs his hand, lacing her fingers between his. “Answer me when you are ready.” It is what little she can give him, even if she wishes she could wrench it out of him right now. He does not linger around, a strange rage and frustration mixed on his face.

He leaves her alone to face her righteous judgement from the Scions.


	10. Eight of Swords

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: a bit of consensual stabbing, partial lightwarden transformation
> 
> Chapter 10: Eight of Swords. _The deceit is a prison and we wonder what it will take to be freed of the bondage we caused._

Qestra hates Amh Araeng. She hates how the sand gets into her ears and makes them itch, she hates how the heat makes her skin dry and crack, and she hates how the heat presses into her, always, making the clothes stick to her skin.

Her mother would laugh at her and tell her she has grown too used to milder climates. She would not be wrong. Qestra has changed, too much in some regards. And she keeps changing, the pulse under her skin quickening as she discreetly wipes another droplet of light on the back of her hand, hoping none of the Scions noticed it.

They watch her, they doubt her, and she cannot blame them.

The consequences of what she has done weigh on her mind. She has come along to Amh Araeng, compelled to, drawn by the nagging feeling of what is growing within her. What happens to her the day she cannot control all this light? What happens if she were to surrender to Persephone? What happens when Emet-Selch decides he wants to accept her offer? Who will she be able to protect then? Who will she be able to fight for?

But these questions might not have any bearing on it at all soon enough. The light will wipe all from her if she waits long enough.

It already is — parts of herself are slipping away, memories blanking out until all she remembers are the outlines. Names go first. She does not remember her mother’s name, nor her face. She does not remember the name of her home village. She remembers the trees her brother and she used to sleep in when they both tried to be forest wardens, but only he succeeded. Past that, it all begins to fray.

She still has so much to do. The road keeps going but her time is running out. So many promises left to keep, so much to _fix_.

Above all, she needs to see things through with Minfilia. There is a question there that took root with Emet-Selch’s words. _Who will be the lucky winner?_ Who will yield for the other to rule.

In her light-soaked dreams, she stands in front of Persephone and tries to understand this echo haunting her, this shadow she lives under, but all she is met with is silence. It drives her up the wall.

She wonders how Emet-Selch could love this horrid mystery of a woman, when all she does is turn away and refuse to give any straightforward answers. When all she gives Qestra is anger and rage and bloodied hands and a ruined future. What is there even to love in her besides a memory of who she used to be?

So she shuffles her cards, sitting in the shade of a rock outcropping as Urianger and Thancred try to devise a plan to get further south.

The others are annoyed with her. Understandable, she admits, given what they have seen of her lately. Were she in their shoes, she might think the same. Their eyes are always following her, even as they pointedly keep things short and brusque with her.

Infusing the cards with her aether, she feels the abyss of the unknown opening up, the threads of time coming together in a magnificent weave. Questions, questions. There are so many swirling in her. She just needs one to pluck at. She needs to dare look.

Or she can just distract herself. The click from Thancred’s gunblade chamber worries her, and she puts the cards back into their velvet pouch and gets up, dusting herself off as she steps out into the aching burn of the everlasting light again.

“Give me your gunblade,” she says, holding out her hand to him. “There’s sand in it. If I don’t clean it out, it will backfire.”

He scowls, clearly considering not giving in at all, but he relents, passing it into her hands. “How do you know that?”

She spins the chamber open, using the tip of her dagger to unscrew it enough to get a good look. “I used to live with Garleans, for a while. Gritty sand like this grinds down these groves, here.” She points. “Makes the cartridges lose potency when you fire. Let me, I have longer fingers, I can get the last bits out.”

“Lived with Garleans. Anything else you have been keeping from us?”

She eyes the groves, blowing lightly to scatter the dust she has dislodged. “Lots. Like you keep things from me, and still I trust you. Still I lay my life in your hands. You don’t come to Amh Araeng often, do you?”

“No.” His teeth are gritted, and she drops it, replacing the screw and handing it back over. He tests it, satisfied with it behaving as smoothly as before.

That’s that. They part, and she does not know if anything she can do anymore will endear them to her. So she hangs back in their shadows, waiting. When they look to her and there is no distrust in their eyes, she will be there. For as long as she can be herself, that is.

While they argue and bicker and ignore each other, tensions running high as the weight of Minfilia’s choice hangs in the balance, she flips the deck in her hands. She knows she has to consult the cards. She _needs_ clarity. She needs to plunge herself into the dark waters and find answers, even though she fears what she will find.

Normally, she is so good at keeping her messy personal life separate from business. The only other instance was in Garlemald, where she ruined her entire potential career — and for what? An impulse she could not contain. It seems that her life falls apart when Emet-Selch is around, all her carefully contained and isolated slices bleeding into each other. But she also feels different when it happens. Like she is drawing deeper lungfuls of air. Like the sun is warming her skin even during the night.

Being near Emet-Selch touches on that same feeling she has when she reaches for the stars as an astrologian, drawing on their power. A distant truth opening up in her, a primordial force bestowing her with a sliver of its blessing. Yet she keeps avoiding using it here.

Urianger told her the stars are still there, differently arranged but still familiar if one remembers where to look. The lines of power run true no matter what.

She shuffles the cards again. She stays her hand, again.

Fear is a horrible emotion like this.

Minfilia comes over, looking hesitant and shy, but Qestra gestures at the shaded spot next to her and she sits down besides Qestra.

“What are they arguing about now?” Qestra asks, flipping the cards over in her hands, arranging and rearranging them in order before cutting the deck again.

“They’re not.” Somehow even worse.

“Put your hand on the deck.” Minfilia does as told, but her attunement to aether is so fine that she feels when Qestra tugs at hers to infuse the deck, her fingers twitching. “And now you know my greatest trick,” Qestra says wryly, adding her own to be able to make it an accurate reading. A touch of both to be able to divine the shrouded secrets: the read one to find the pertinent answer, and the reader’s to be able to scour the weave correctly. So many threads and all of them plucking at different future fates yet all leading from the same source.

“What awaits us?” Qestra asks out loud, and realises too late the syntax of her question opened up for the cards to take into account both of their fates. And in a way, she does not mind when she sees the Fool card come out, bright yellow like a rising sun.

“A good one. See the symbolism?” She points at the carefree expression of the fool, their eyes raised up to a yellow sky. “It means the beginning of something new, a journey that is yours alone. It’s a portent of potential. You carry little from the past to weigh you down, you have no map in your hands, but you are ready to go out there and receive.”

It _is_ a good card, it is a card of all these things, and yet Qestra has to swallow down the fear that constricts in her throat when she outlines it for Minfilia. A great blessing for one and a horrific doom for the other. How cruelly the cards fall.

“And it’s about power. Having it, but not wielding it just yet. As I said, potentials. You have so much you can do at this moment, you just need to chose wisely.”

“How can a fool make wise decisions?” Minfilia asks.

“Excellent question.” Qestra points at the little beast nipping at the heels of the fool as the steep cliff fall threatens ahead. “The greatest thing a fool can do is _listen_. Stay open, pay attention, and this: listen to the ones trying to help you. This moment we — _you_ — are in means nothing if you don’t. Let them help you.”

Qestra is beginning to realise she hates the cards, just a little, because they never spare her feelings. No wonder she stayed her hand from them so long. She returns the fool to the deck and the deck to its velvet pouch, mulling over the implications in the back of her head.

Minfilia looks down, up, and her eyes are so wide and unnatural. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. Did you get your cards read often in Eulmore?”

“No. My fate was predetermined long ago. But I liked to watch others have theirs read. This is my first time.” She looks at Qestra and smiles, a tiny little delicate smile that barely touches her lips. “ _You will die soon.”_

“What?”

“Oh. I. It’s the standard ending to all prophecies and card readings here. I thought you knew. You say the worst that can happen to ward it off.”

Qestra blinks, and bursts out laughing. “Morbid.” She loves it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Qestra nudges her arm against Minfilia’s. “Never be sorry with me. We are just two fools doing our best.”

That, at least, draws a genuine albeit short-lived smile from them both.

And then it is back to the endless exhaustion of Amh Araeng. To the sand that gets into her ears and eyes and stains her saliva red. To the grumpy glances from Thancred and the subdued worry of Urianger. And then, then it is only Qestra and Minfilia, the other two having stayed behind to give them a chance at resolution.

When Minfilia and the Oracle of Light meet, Qestra as their sole witness, she struggles to breathe. The force of the Oracle’s light weighs on her, pressing against her own, and she tastes the tang of it in the back of her mouth.

Things change and things stay the same. The Minfilia she knew is gone, truly, dead in one way and dead in all the ways, suddenly. They walk back to the others in silence, a strange kind of almost homecoming. Qestra steps back to the side, the shadows feeling denser around her as she does.

Ryne is a beautiful name. She envies her, a little, here at the crux of their issues. To be given a chance to be your own. To be welcomed back with open arms and in charge of your full power.

Qestra pretends she is fine. She pretends nothing about this moment has cracked open an abyss within herself.

She pretends the light isn’t burning her alive from the inside out.

* * *

Emet-Selch may be furious with Qestra, with her reckless abandon for her own life and her way of offering it up like it is a card in a game, but he never stops watching her. Amh Araeng’s light is insufferable to stay in for too long, but still there are shaded spots, caves she passes through, places where he can be intangible enough that she does not see him.

She does not comprehend the full extent of what she wants from him. To enter the Underworld requires dying. It requires his blade, and his will.

Only one of them is lacking.

And so, he watches her. When she comes to sit in the shade, he can smell her, the sweat and the perfume underneath that, the herbs she carries with her and uses for everything. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her, bury his nose in her hair, tell her what a foolish hero she is.

He does not.

He follows and watches. The light radiating from her keeps growing, festering like a bad wound.

The shadow he gifted into her in Rak’tika is obliterated as she defeats another lightwarden, and she is blazing and radiant, akin to the sun in strength but the light is different. Still. In these moments, she reminds him so much of who she used to be, long ago. The radiance that made plants grow. The warmth that made the ground blossom where she tread.

He follows them back to Mord Souq, to the inn room she retires to. He watches as she falls asleep, curled up into a tight ball around the pillow she clutches to her belly, and he knows he should not, but…

He must. He must.

“Persephone.” He calls her name in Amaurotine, in the ancient language they once spoke under starry and empty skies alike. “We need to talk.”

Persephone rising to the surface of Qestra is a dreadful thing to behold. The light crackles and moves, so poorly contained in her mortal vessel. A stray breeze could shatter her in this vulnerable moment. He dares not touch her, lest she come apart under his hand, but how he aches to pull her close and overwhelm her with his darkness until she becomes _whole_.

“What is it, most unloved Hades?” Her voice is a croak, light dripping from her mouth. “You have done nothing I asked of you. Why should I answer to you?”

“Because we were lovers.”

“Once. And now nothing of that remains.” She moves up from the bed, testing her control of Qestra’s body. Emet-Selch takes a few steps back, wanting to keep a distance more than he wants her, but the line is thin.

“ _I_ remain.” His voice turns bitter. “I have always remained. I have always waited. For twelve thousand years now, I have lived and died and waited for you.”

Persephone wavers in her acidic tone. “Has it been that long?” She moves up to the mirror, touching at her face, the green in Qestra’s eyes growing paler. “It has.”

“The years have been as dreadful as you cursed them to be.” His resolve breaks, and he grabs her shoulders. Her skin is burning hot, too hot to be normal. He cups her face, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “And still you hate me.”

She leans into his touch, a little, her smile so cruel. “Yes. Yes, I do. Perhaps I always will.”

“Then what will you have me do to atone? Crawl on my hands and knees? Debase myself for you? Do you wish me to tell you about the thousands of lives I have lived, the thousands of people I have loved, the families I have tried to build to understand why you choose this? The empires I have designed and destroyed, the altars and cults I constructed in your honour?” He presses his forehead to hers, smelling the metallic scent of light on her. “Persephone… Answer me. What will you have of me?”

She wrenches his hands off of her, her grip so painfully harsh that he gasps.

“Nothing. I would have nothing.”

He tilts his head back, pinching his nose. “She wants to go to the Underworld. Would you let her?”

Persephone laughs, mean and heartless. “Still you do not remember the way? Oh, my precious Hades. It is what you deserve. Have you tricked her into thinking that is the salvation for both of you? You will find nothing there to save you. Nothing to make you feel better.” She shrugs, so careless with the body that a loud crack sounds through the air as if a bone has snapped out of place. “Go. Try your luck. But…”

She grabs him by the chin, holding her other hand to his throat. “You disgust me. You two. You deserve to die.”

And then she is gone, leaving Qestra reeling and gasping for air. Emet-Selch vanishes before her eyes can focus on him, fading into the shadows enough to see the terrible price Persephone demands of her vessel. Of her inheritor.

* * *

A thin line of light shudders within Qestra and then shatters with such force that she jolts forward, feeling the echo of it in her bones. She reels, not understanding, the room askew in her senses, nothing where it should be.

_It disgusts me. You and him._

Persephone is hissing at her like a demon, her voice so loud and vicious. Qestra glimpses herself in the mirror and realises that her lips are moving, _her_ vocal cords are the ones pronouncing this judgement.

Her clothes are drenched in sweat and she feels a terrible need to get outside, so strong that she does not have time to get her boots on before she is stumbling down the corridor. She leans on the wall, vaguely registering that she is passing by people with shocked faces, wet light dripping down from her mouth like water she cannot swallow.

_Him and you. You both deserve to die._

And something familiar and unknown shatters within her, breaks open and she… She cannot understand what is happening to her anymore. The bones at her left shoulder blade are cracking, shifting as something else pushes out underneath, bulging against her skin. There is a surge of pain, but it is so distant, like it is not even part of her.

“Is everything alright?” She knows the voice. She does. Just not right now…

_And so I take your last protection from you. Good luck._

She cannot see their faces, and their voices are so distant. Something is shivering to life right underneath her skin, unfolding and uncurling and breaking free.

She is turning. It’s too soon, she is too weak to contain it, she is a failure and she has failed them all, oh… The door _the door she needs out she needs to get away from here —_

Things pass in flashes, light blotting out entire chunks of time as it surges higher and higher within her. The sand is still hot under her feet as she breaks into a wild sprint, not caring where she goes but away, away from all these living, breathing, _vulnerable_ people and out into the dark. The night soothes her aching skin, but not enough.

Her hand is shimmering with bright light, her veins thrumming with it. You will die soon, indeed.

The light emanating from her parts the shadows of the night and

_she_

_can_

_see_

_him._

He is there and he is watching and he is horrible and wicked and cruel and she cannot see his eyes but she knows, she knows… She has always known him and he has always known her, hasn’t he. He flinches, and she does not know if it is her speaking or Persephone, just that her tongue burns in her mouth.

She reaches her hand out towards him, a plea on her lips for his shadows to come and swallow her whole, please put out the fire licking at her mind _please —_

But he does not take it. He is already retreating, taking a step back, leaving her.

The others come, their voices so far away in her ears even when she sees their shivering outlines at the edges of her vision. Emet-Selch disappears, shadows taking him, and she slumps to the ground. They came for her. They are fools but they came.

Their hands are on her body, holding the wet wing still, Thancred cupping her face as he tries to determine how gone she is. Will he do it? She thinks she is begging him to do it, this is it this is her hubris coming to collect —

“Hold her still.”

She thinks she is saying thank you, but the words are more like wet coughs than syllables in her mouth. Thancred’s face is replaced with Ryne’s, and she is so small and delicate and distraught, and a pang of guilt hits Qestra square in the chest. She does not need to see this — shouldn’t have to. Her life is just getting good. Her life, her real own life, is just beginning.

“Her soul is blazing so bright,” Ryne says, her face contorted in fear. “Like the sun. Thancred, what…”

“Hold her still. I don’t know if this will work.”

“I.. I will try to stabilise her.”

“Qestra? Qestra. Listen to me. I’m sorry about this. It will hurt. Do you understand?”

She nods, the world swaying as she does.

Thancred rips the remains of her tattered shirt from her torso, his hand gripping the wing and wrenching as much of it as possible away from her body. The heavy weight of his blade presses against her shoulder, the cool metal searing against her skin. Thancred cuts swift and true, the pain striking through her distantly. It hurts and burns and her body is hers again, and the pain makes her cry out. The darkness of the night seeps back into her vision, the washed-out blur of their faces coming into focus again.

She inhabits her own body again, the dull ache at her back being mended together by Ryne. Her flesh knits back together, the seams aching, and she squirms away even as she knows it will leave a horrendous scar.

Thancred shrugs off his coat and drapes it over her, apologising again for cutting off her top. She pulls it together as close as she can, folding her shaking arms over her breasts as they walk her back to her room. Ryne sits her down on a chair and grabs a shirt from her bag, the contents spilled all over the floor in a haphazard mess. She helps her put it on gingerly, taking care to not disturb the wound.

“Head to bed, Ryne,” Thancred says from the door. “I’ll take it from here.”

Ryne looks to Qestra for confirmation, and she nods in reassurance, still not entirely certain she can form words.

Thancred hands her a glass of some indeterminate alcohol, but the burn soothes her, the prickle in her throat a reminder that her body is still responding, still hers. The taste is tinged with metal, blood and light, and she grimaces but swallows it all down and slams the glass on the table. Thancred refills it without judgement.

“How frequent has this been?” he asks without looking up at her.

“Not very.” Her voice is raw. Useable, but raw.

“You're lying.”

“Yes.” She knocks back the drink in one go and grimaces. “But what else am I meant to say? I can still do it. I can. I must.” She thumbs the edge of her glass, biting back a laugh that verges on hysterical.

“What’s so funny?”

“You know, I lie more than he does.”

Thancred grimaces, shaking his head. “I don’t think doing anything with him is right. It is an unnecessary risk.”

“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Yet you do it.”

She shrugs. The alcohol has loosened her tongue enough that she might as well. “If I were to say that I have memories of a life long past that I lived with him, would you believe it?”

He knocks back his drink. “Strange things keep happening.”

“They do. I miss things being straightforward.”

Her time must be running out if the light is doing this to her. Whatever was keeping it in balance is crumbling rapidly. She needs to figure out some sort of contingency plan if things go awry. In fact, she already has.

She thinks about offering herself up to Emet-Slech. As a vessel for Persephone: a trade, for their safety, their lives. Is it enough to be what he wants? “There may come a day when you have to let me die. Will you let me?”

Thancred sighs. “Don’t make me answer that.”

She pats his upper arm, and they continue drinking in silence.

* * *

Qestra stays on in Lakeland as the others go on ahead back to the Crystarium to debrief the Crystal Exarch. When they are out of sight, she climbs one of the cliffs, as high as she can go until the expanse of the stars above her are unobscured. Her arms ache from the effort and she has to take care not to let Thancred’s coat fall from her shoulders, but when she finally makes it she tilts her head back and smiles.

The night sky is so endlessly, impossibly beautiful. The lines of power run true, albeit different. The angle of the First creates different constellations, but if she reaches her hand up and the coat slides from her shoulders, she can draw on it again. It was always there, she just did not dare look.

Opening herself up to the stars, she feels things much more acutely. Above all, she feels the dim unfocused presence behind her, and smirks. “How much do you watch from the shadows?” she says, addressing Emet-Selch.

He snorts, appearing in the blink of an eye. “No more than is appropriate.”

“You sure like to watch. So tell me, can you see my soul?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

He sits down next to her, swinging his legs over the cliff’s edge. “Suffused with light. So much light.”

“I am dying, aren’t I?”

“Every hour of every day.” His voice is soft and tender, and he looks at her with a pained smile.

“When I asked you to kill me to take me down to the Underworld, you hesitated.”

“You think it means something? Do not get ahead of yourself, dear.”

She smiles. His answers sometimes really do tell on him. She turns her gaze back up to the night sky. “Is it not beautiful? Though perhaps you cannot appreciate it, busy as you are with wrecking what is here.”

“Do you presume to know the beauty of the worlds we have sacrificed? You think this place beautiful and still it pales to what I have known, what I remember. These places, these people, they are mere shadows of what glory once existed.”

“And so you condemn them.” She tilts her head, cheek on her arm. “Emperor Solus zos Galvus. I gave so much of myself to rebellions to overthrow your Empire. And now I know you have created so many of them. More than I will ever know, right? And it disgusts me.”

He shrugs, but his expression goes cold. “They were all built to be destroyed. You fulfil your role, and I mine. It is the balance of things.”

“So you say. I hold all this hatred for you. Some of it is mine. Some of it is hers. I’m so frustrated with you. All this destruction. All this death. And what for? Has it made anything better?”

He reaches out, his hand disgustingly tender as he touches her cheek, brushing back a stray lock that has fallen down into her face. She wants to slap him. She wants to kiss him. She wants to ask him a thousand questions while also silencing him forever.

She thinks he might split her apart if he keeps being near her, and she wants it as much as she fears it.

“You do not understand the end goal because you have not asked,” he says, gently, his face closer to hers.

“Can any sacrifice on a scale such as what you have committed justify the end?”

“If you only wished to join me, you would see.”

She sighs. “That would be a solution, wouldn’t it? The light is taking so much from me. I realised today that I have forgotten my mother’s name. The name of my village.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “Your village is called —“

She growls, covering his mouth with her hand. “I hate that you know more about me than I know myself. So shut up. Don’t tell me unless I ask.”

His tongue moves against her fingers and she hates him, she adores him, it is all too much. She will kiss him again before this night is over. Some things are inevitable like the tide. She drags her hand across his face, wiping off the saliva, feigning an expression of disgust even as a smile tugs at her lips.

“You have an answer for everything in my life, don’t you. And you think it’s _charming_.”

“You need merely _ask_ , and I will gladly let you partake of all the knowledge I have that you can manage. It is not much, considering your sundered state, but enough of it.”

Her eyes flash. “So what is it about the Underworld that frightens you so?”

Now he is the one to look frustrated, grabbing her chin and yanking her close, his teeth skimming her lips and digging in just enough to make her hiss. “Remember how we began,” he says in a low, threatening whisper. “You give, and then I give. It is only a fair exchange. So tell _me_ , dearest: what frightened you so about the Garlean Empire?”

She breathes once, twice, slowly. “You.” The answer is painfully simple.

“Then you know what my answer will be for the Underworld. You.”

She bites his lip, hard enough to draw blood. “I am not her,” she snarls. “I am _me_.”

He licks at the blood pooling on the two cuts in his lip, swallowing it down. “You even sound like her right now.”

“There is more to it.”

“Of course. Things are never as simple as we want them to be.” He lowers his eyes, his shoulders sagging even more. “I left her there, at a time when the world was unravelling. Time sped up. It shouldn’t have, was never built to happen, but the laws of reality were fraying. I left for what I thought was just a few hours and ten thousand years passed for her, all alone. she cursed me to live the same way.”

A shiver runs down Qestra's spine. “When she burned the Underworld…"

“She sealed me out. I cannot reach it anymore. Not alone.”

“So that is why you want me. Need me. To fix your own mistakes.”

“You are putting your own words to my motivations. What I want and what I need from you are two vastly different things, and you would be smart not to confuse them.” His petulance deflates, just a little. “But yes. I need you if I want to return.”

She laughs, abrupt and angry. “You are such a demanding piece of shit. You ruin my life and take from it over and over. Do you think I ever wanted to live like this? I just wanted to study and travel the world. And then you chased me all over. I hid for years and years. I erased my name. I tried to disappear.”

“All I wanted was to talk.”

“We both know that isn’t true. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now, that we just want to _talk_.” She exhales, licking her lips. “Will you be honest if I ask you a question?”

“I always have been.”

That is what terrifies her the most. “Who am I to you?”

“A fountain of pain.”

He evades, leaving blanks, telling truths that reveal nothing.

“She said you would always see her before you saw me, and I understand what she meant now. So. If I surrender to her, once all this is done, once all the lightwardens are defeated, will you let them live? My friends, the Crystarium, the First. All of them. Take me wherever you like. Burn me out and have Persephone alone, if it pleases you. But leave everyone here to live their lives untouched by your hand.”

“You would ask me to set aside my life’s work for what, your own foolish hope? Some misguided desire to _sacrifice yourself_?” His voice is tinged with disgust, and she takes note. One day she will dare to clearly see the shape of what he wants.

Though part of her already does.

“I will pay the price for them.”

“Very well. If you insist on being such a fool, who am I to stop you? I cast my lot as an observer only.”

“All I ask is…” She rolls her eyes at herself, biting back a self-admonishing grin. “If you chose her, just make me feel loved before you do.”

“These prices you wish to pay on behalf of others.” He presses himself closer to her, his lips on hers, a kiss to seal a dangerous deal. “They do not deserve even half of what you give them. You will be mine if you continue like this.”

She kisses him back, hard and with teeth, demanding and taking. “Not yet. And if I emerge alive, and myself, _you_ will be mine. And you will like it.”

He smiles, dragging his lips along her jaw. “Surprise me. Show yourself worthy of my faith. I will enjoy it.”

How fast a fool falls, indeed.

* * *

The Oculus. Ah, to be back amongst the Scions and somehow find himself even more loathed than before. It truly is a marvellous feat, the places she leads him.

Emet-Selch cannot wait for the next act. The journey he has been longing for.

Oh, of course the Scions and Crystal Exarch want to make some sort of misguided, wasteful point about how he is not welcome. He does not care. They will stomp their feet and huff, but as long as she invites him, they cannot do anything. Her words rule more than they want to admit, even when they disagree.

And he will need them to play their part in the journey, as well. He will need to remind them of their place in it all. He lets their words and anger wash over him, taking it in, and then turns it back at them.

“You whine and moan about her choices yet what do you do yourselves?” He speaks slowly, intentionally, but cannot help the twinge of malice seeping into his voice. “What _can_ you do but support her? Her! Seven times rejoined! Split open by the light that none of you can bear to carry, weak and body-less as you are. Come now, did you not think I saw the truth of it? Your aether stretches thin between two worlds, more here than there, your frail bodies already decaying.”

The collective shiver that goes through them as they realise he knows. Ah, sometimes knowledge is such a deliciously pointed weapon.

“What are you doing to help? Nothing.” Thancred spits out the words. “You gave up on everyone here before you even really tried.”

“There is nothing here to save. Nothing worthy of the effort.”

Qestra looks at him coldly. “I disagree.”

He sighs, rolling his eyes. “They are incapable of shouldering the burden you are taking on, and still you love them?”

“Yes. I do what I do out of love. Out of care.”

There she is. There. Right there. The one he knows, the one he loves. The Persephone who was Azem, the Persephone who existed before his cursed hands broke her apart.

But no. It is Qestra. Solely her. And she is magnificent in her own, fractured way. She keeps fighting, will keep fighting until the very bitter end. She is not going down just because. She is biting back. She is fighting back tooth and nail. He hates it, he loves it. He wishes she would just stop and lean her head on his shoulder and stay still.

The clock ticks slowly onward. Soon. When the sun crests over the horizon is the perfect time. To channel the power of the Crystal Tower and the sun, to use her powers to find the way she once long ago sealed out of his reach.

He is just waiting. Drawing it out.

They debate, they shift on their feet. They do not know what is to come. What greatness the Crystal Tower was truly constructed for, drawn up by his schematics. It was always meant to be a tool for dual purposes. Their greatest weakness and greatest strength, depending on how the sun fills the millions of crystals. It is a different aetherical tension in the walls, and he just has to reach out and pluck it like a string into her.

Not even Hydaelyn can protect her like this, not against the true power of what she contains. Of who she is.

He draws upon the power around him, the crystals amplifying his call. He may not be the steward of the tower, but he knows the secrets contained within. He knows how to draw upon the power and turn it on her.

It singes his hand, to use light against light. But the light of the sun prevails. The sun existed long before Hydaelyn, and one day, their disparate gods will wither and die too.

“Qestra,” he says, holding his hand out. “Now.”

She hesitates. Wise. Potentially the only shred of wisdom he has seen her display, if he wants to be cruel about it, and a part of him sorely wants to. She should not do this. She should never have volunteered. But he is greedy, and he wants to know. Needs to.

She takes his hand, and he pulls her close. It would not do to lead her into death unkissed, and he hungrily kisses her, hoping she will find something worth staying his blade for in it. The taste of pomegranates still linger on her tongue, a taste he has not sampled in far too long. She is so beautiful like this. So vulnerable, and open, and all under his sway.

A moment never meant to last. He breaks the kiss and in his hand, the blade materialises out of shadows.

“Trust me. I will not let you be lost,” he says, holding her as he drives the blade in under her breast, all the way through her heart. “Not anymore.”

Her eyes go wide, lips trembling and blood welling up into her mouth. She looks betrayed. It is not as comforting a mercy as he used to give Persephone — but Qestra has no sense of immortality. She thinks she is dying forever. She thinks this is it.

How wrong she is.

He feels her soul slipping, and he follows along. She will know the path he has been blinded from seeing. She will lead, and he will follow her all the way home to where it began: his greatest crime. His deserved undoing.

**Author's Note:**

> [Walks into the fandom a year late with Starbucks] Sup guys here’s my garbage heap of writing, enjoy.
> 
> Divination card system of the First not-so-loosely based on the Rider-Waithe tarot system, with a few minor alterations to themes and motifs. Meanings and interpretations are (mostly) derived from _Holistic Tarot_ by Benebell Wen, as well as reading layouts and analytical approach rather than divinatory. 
> 
> Title from [A Myth of Devotion](https://poets.org/poem/myth-devotion) by Louise Glück. 
> 
> My twitter is [@celestial_txt](https://twitter.com/celestial_txt) & [my carrd](https://celestial-txt.carrd.co/) is here.


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